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Okay, I have an email here
from a man named Dan. He says

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I can use his whole name,
but I just use first name, so

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we're gonna stick with Dan. It's
a good story. Here's what he writes.

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Is Bigfoot real? That's a question
I found myself asking a lot,

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especially after the series Finding Bigfoot started
on an Animal Planet. The eyewitness accounts

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on that show we're compelling, but
the lack of irrefutable evidence was frustrating.

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I figured I would have to see
one for myself before I could believe,

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but it didn't stop me from asking
myself that question. Whenever I had a

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spare minute to think about it.
I was surprised by the answer I got.

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It was November twelve, twenty fifteen, the day before Friday, the

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thirteenth, and two days before my
niece's wedding on the fourteenth. I wasn't

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going to the wedding. I was
out of town and I couldn't get the

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time off from work, so I
decided to take a day trip to a

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semi abandoned a farm outside of Stellville, Missouri, where I had my camper

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parked. It was the time of
year to winterize it and I brought my

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buddy Mike along with me. Mike
is mentally challenged, but he was a

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good helper and generally a no nonsense
kind of guy. The farm was up

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the hill from a Christian summer camp
that we had built. The camp was

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closed for the season, but I
used the camper when it was in session.

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The farmer who on the land allowed
me to park there year round.

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Aside from my camper, there were
several sheds and lean tos for animals and

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stalls for horses, and I used
to feed them back there when they were

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occupied. Back then, I could
plug into the electricity and draw water from

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a pump in the yard, but
now that was vacant and I could do

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neither. For that reason, I
brought a small generator with me so I

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could power the lights in the RV
run the air compressor that I would use

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to blow out the water line so
that they wouldn't freeze over. The grass

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had grown up quite a bit since
I was there last. It was five

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feet high in places, and behind
the camper was a barbed wire fence.

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Beyond that it dropped off to a
wooded ravine. We got to work right

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away and I blew out the lines
and added RV anti freeze where needed.

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The last thing I needed to do
before it got too dark and we had

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to go home was to put the
covering tart back on the camper and tie

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it down. A severe storm had
come through the area of the night before

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and had blown it off. While
I was up on the six foot ladder

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and Mike held it steady for me, I could hear something walking in the

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steep wood hills of the ravine,
and as soon as I finished tying down

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the tarp, I turned around and
swept the ravine with a small flashlight.

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I immediately hit eyeshine and it was
six feet off the ground. Also thought

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I detected movement. I looked down
at Mike and I said, Mike,

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I think I see bigfoot. Well
Mike laughed and he said, Dan quit

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joking around. Well, something big
is walking up there, I told him,

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and I'm not joking. Mike had
reason not to believe me. I

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had a tendency to tease him from
time to time. Once, while we

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were building the camp, we took
turns going out at night to another building

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to use the bathroom facilities. When
we went outside in the dark, we

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would howl and then we came running
back inside, and we'd be breathing heavily,

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and we'd tell Mike that we'd been
chased by wolves. Mike held as

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blighter as long as he could before
finally venturing out with his flashlight and a

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stick in his hand. And when
he got outside, someone howled from around

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the corner of the building, and
then when the door shut, we'd all

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howl with laughter. It was good
natured fun, and I'm only slightly ashamed

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of all that now, but it
was that kind of stuff that made Mike

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look at me now as if I
were the boy who cried wolf. It

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wasn't until I repeated myself that he
finally said, in his quiet, no

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nonsense way, Hey, let's get
going. Grab my toolbox out of the

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camper, I said, and let's
get loaded up. I had my own

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doubts as to what it was,
but that lingering question in the back of

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my head started whispering, is Bigfoot
real? It was still pretty far away,

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so I asked myself what the people
on finding Bigfoot would do to bring

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it in, and I remembered that
they would do tree knocks. But I

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was six feet up a ladder in
the middle of a hayfield. Even if

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I had something to knock with,
I didn't have a tree, so I

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decided to slam my hand three times
on the top of the camper, and

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that made a loud racket. But
I forgot about Mike being inside. He

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stuck his head out the door,
and he yelled, Dan, what are

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you doing. I'm doing Knox to
try to get the bigfoot to come closer,

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I said, for once, I
wasn't trying to scare him or pull

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his leg, but the tremor in
his voice told me that I'd done a

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pretty good job of it anyway.
Don't do that, he demanded, Now,

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let's get going. I couldn't tell
if Mike believed it or not.

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I wasn't sure if I believed it
yet. The knox failed to draw the

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eyes shine in closer, but they
did get its attention. Now there was

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a second set of eyes, low
to the ground and closer to us.

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I trained the light on them as
they slowly stood up and became a tall

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creature. The hill was too steep
to accurately judge how tall, but I

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knew the eyes were set too far
apart to belong to a man. I

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decided that the other must have been
curious and was trying to sneak up on

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me to get a better look.
Maybe it thought I was another bigfoot.

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With the light are mostly hidden in
the tall grass, and from his angle

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down the hill, he probably saw
me as being as tall as the camper.

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Unfortunately, both sets of eyes were
still too far away to make out

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any real detail with my tiny flashlight. Again, I thought about finding bigfoot

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and what they would have done to
draw these creatures in, and I thought

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they would have made whooping calls.
Whoop, whoop, I yelled. Mike

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was back outside, now standing at
the bottom of the ladder, and he

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yelled up to me, Dan,
what are you doing now? I'm trying

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to get him in closer, I
explained, Man, don't do that,

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he said, more agitated than before. Let's go. I was sure now

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that I had convinced him that there
were bigfoot creeping around on the hillside.

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I flashed the light out into the
increasing darkness, and I now counted three

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sets of eyes, and due to
my call, they were coming closer,

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and Mike was scared. He was
ready to leave, but I wasn't.

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They were still too far away to
positively identify them, and that question in

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the back of my head was begging
for an answer. This might be my

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one chance to prove to myself that
Bigfoot does exist. Each time I flashed

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the light on a different set of
eyes, they would freeze. Meanwhile,

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the other two sets would slowly come
closer. They still weren't close enough to

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identify them with my pathetically insufficient little
light. I had a bigger and better

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flashlight on my truck show. I
showed Mike the different sets of eyes and

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I told him to keep them in
sight while I went to grab it.

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The batteries and the other light weren't
very good, so it wasn't much better

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than the first light, but at
least now we had two lights on two

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of them. Now only one creature
at a time was slowly coming ever closer.

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We kept them at bay by rotating
the lights from one set of eyes

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to another, but not close enough
to fully identify what we were seeing.

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Despite this, they were getting too
close for my personal comfort. They'd already

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reached that point for Mike, and
once again I asked myself what the people

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on finding Bigfoot would do, and
the answer was that they would stay around

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and try to get a picture.
I reached into my pocket to pull up

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my phone, but common sense was
battling with my curiosity, and at one

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to heck with this, I said, And I told Mike what he'd been

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wanting to hear for several minutes.
Let's get out of here. We couldn't

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just jump in the truck and go
though. The ladder and the compressor and

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the generator all had to be loaded. I told Mike to hold them off

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with the flashlight while I rounded up
all that stuff and put it in the

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truck faster than I have ever loaded
anything in my life. And by the

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time I got it done, Mike
was already jumping in on the passenger side

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of the truck. Okay, great, I thought, without the flashlights to

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slow them down, they could be
anywhere. The barbera fence wasn't likely to

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slow them down. They might even
be in the tall grass close to the

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truck. I hit the kill switch
on the generator, which had been running

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the whole time in the back of
my truck. The little light inside the

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camper. Oh man, sorry to
interrupt the story. There, I just

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had a stink bug crawling on me. I could feel it a few minutes

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ago, and I thought I was
just itching, but then I smelled it

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and I had to I hate killing
bugs. I don't even like to kill

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bugs. But man, these stink
bugs are everywhere. Okay where was I?

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Oh? Great? I thought,
without the flashlights to slow them down,

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they could be anywhere. The barbar
fence wasn't likely to slow them down.

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They might even be in the tall
grass close to the truck. Well,

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I hit the kill switch on the
generator, which had been running the

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whole time in the back of the
truck. The little light inside the camper

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went out, and we were left
in the dark. The silence, however,

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was deafening, with nothing but stars
overhead. I made my way up

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to the driver's side door. I
reached in and I turned on the headlights.

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We still couldn't see beyond the camper
to our sides because of the tall

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grass all around us. And I
stood there with the door open, trying

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not to make any noise, and
I was listening intently for any sound,

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anything, And for the longest time, it was incredibly silent, And then

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I heard what sounded like a grunt
or a snort over by the cedar trees

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beyond the barberar fence. In a
moment of instant and absolute clarity, I

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knew that this was it. This
was my only chance to answer that question

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that was eating at my brain.
If I ran now, I might never

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have this chance again. I had
to know. I had to know if

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Bigfoot exists. With my last bit
of courage, I told Mike to wait

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in the truck, and I grabbed
a flashlight and I said, I'll be

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right back, Dan. What are
you doing? Mike cried, Let's get

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out of here. He's gonna rush
you. Bigfoot's gonna rush you. I

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could hear the tears in his voice. I could feel the almost tangible panic

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that was taking over, and I
knew that he was probably right. I

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should have listened to him, I
should have got a side of there,

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but that question just kept eating at
me. I had to know. Ignoring

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every ounce of common sense I had, I continued forward, keeping close to

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the camper, and with trembling hands, I pointed the light toward the cedar

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trees and illuminated three horses behind a
fence. Apparently they had been grazing on

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the hill and I call them up, probably expecting to receive apples for their

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efforts. Finally I had my proof, proof that people really do let their

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imaginations run away with them. And
to your readers, although this was not

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an actual bigfoot encounter, ninety nine
point nine percent of it is true.

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The only part that was ever so
slightly embellished to make me look brave and

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to make it better reading was the
part about the snort. I was pretty

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sure it was a horse when I
heard it, and in my defense,

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I had never seen them on that
side of the fence before and the form

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was deserted. But still I wasn't
one hundred percent certain that they were horses

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until I actually saw them with my
eyes. After all, the experts on

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finding bigfoot had taught me that bigfoot
are known to be excellent mimics. Little

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did I know that I had already
encountered them when I was growing up.

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But I didn't realize that then.
What I was seeing, smelling, and

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experiencing my early encounters you have already
recounted in your episode entitled The Missouri Monster

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Revisited Bigfoot Encounters all over Missouri Marathon
number eighty two, and that's the end

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of his story. He went on
to talk about give his commentary on the

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WU subject. You guys, I'm
not really clear on what the WU stuff

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is, but I hear that word
all the time, but I've never heard

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it defined, so I don't really
know what it is. But if I

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hear it, I know that it's
WU stuff. And he goes on to

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say also that he's a pastor,
and he is a minister of the Gospel,

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and he encourages people to believe in
Jesus and to take him as their

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savior. Those are good words.
And he also thinks that some people take

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the topic of Bigfoot too far and
they almost treat it like a religion.

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I agree with that. There's a
lot of people so deep into this.

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I don't think any of those people
really listen to my channel anymore. But

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because I'm just not real serious about
this bigfoot stuff, I just like the

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stories. I've said it a million
times. So to the writer, I

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didn't want to. I don't want
you to think I just cut your commentary

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at the end of your email out, but we try to just stick with

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the story. But I wanted to
mention some of the high points on what

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you said, and there you have
it. But I really appreciate this story.

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I thought it was great. It's
not a bigfoot encounter, but it

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is an absolute testament to probably half
of the stories that I get. People

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never see or hear anything. They
are no people never see anything, but

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they hear, they smell, they
sense, there's all kinds of things going

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on, but they never see it. If he had not seen these horses,

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how would this story have changed?
That's to me, that's the question.

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And I'm guessing he's probably thought about
that, but seeing the horses kind

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of confros that. Yeah, I
let my imagination get away with me.

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So that's critical thinking right there,
in my opinion. So I appreciate the

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letter. Hope you guys enjoyed it, and we'll see you on the next

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video. Thanks