My first encounter was something that couldn't be explained. Happened to me back in
nineteen eighty seven. I was a sixteen year old boy, and I wasn't
afraid of anything, at least while my dad and uncles were nearby. It
was a family tradition at the time for all of us to wake up at
three am and travel an hour and a half to our favorite hunting spot,
the Okay here we go with a pronunciation mangle muggly oak mugly ok m u
Lge Wildlife Area in Tuscaloosa, Alabama. Once we arrived to the general area,
it was a mile hike back to where we would set up camp.
On this particular morning, we were running late, and as we arrived just
before sun up, the codies were already sounding off in the distance. They
made me feel a little unsettled since I was walking into the deep dark forest
with just a flashlight. But my dad and my uncles were there to reassure
me or at least poke fun of me, making me forget any of my
fears about the woods. We had been hunting together for years, and like
family, we knew each other pretty well. For whatever reason, the rest
of them decided to venture off into the woods, leaving me and my rifle
to occupy an old deer stand. To me, it looked like an old
outhouse with a small window on either side, and after sweeping the cobwebs out
of it with my hands, I closed the door behind me. I looked
out the windows, and I scanned the woods for coyotes, and around seven
am I noticed a young doe off to my right. She was probably seventy
yards away. According to the laws at the time, you could only take
a dough on selected days, and I raised my rifle. The doe was
laboring to breathe. It staggered toward the stand, and then it lapsed.
Deer run from humans. Yet the dough was just lying there motionless. I
couldn't pull the trigger on her. And then I heard something rustle in the
bushes behind the stand, and I pointed my rifle in the same direction,
and I waited a few seconds, but nothing emerged. The dough struggled to
her feet and disappeared over the ridge ahead of me, and the bushes rustled
again, but the noise was coming from a different direction. No sooner than
I had refocused my attention, the sound would drift to my right and then
to my left. I was spinning in circles, trying to figure out which
window to aim my rifle out. I was sure a herd of deer were
going to fly out of the brush from all directions at any time. And
then something slammed into the side of the shooting house with enough force to knock
me off my feet, and it was followed by a blood curdling screen.
My back was against the wall, and I slid into a crouched position,
and I clutched my rifle, and I panicked, and I burst through the
door, determined to outrun whatever had crashed into the stand. When I got
to our truck, my uncle was sitting inside the cab. He was having
a smoke, and I was out of breath, and I asked why he
wasn't out in the woods honting, And something's out there, was all he
said. My dad and my other uncle stumbled in a few minutes later,
and they threw their gear into the back of the truck and they climbed inside
the cab, and a few minutes later we were on the highway, headed
home. For all of our big talk about hunting, we left empty handed
that day. Apparently each of them had heard the same thing that I had
heard, an inhuman scream that echoed through the trees. Each accused the other
of pulling a prank. I realized whatever had hit the side of my shooting
house, it did so with such force that it certainly couldn't have come from
any My uncles are my dad. The Oak Mulgi Wildlife Management Area is an
old Indian burial ground. It's rich in Indian traditions. Just look up Moundville
some time. My father passed away in two thousand and four. He was
a Vietnam veteran who wasn't scared of anything, but in the early nineteen seventies
something happened that terrified him. It was a fall afternoon in the small town
of Bird's Eye, Indiana. My father was squirrel hunting on my mother's family
property. He used the opportunity to scout the land for signs of deer for
the upcoming season. There was a nice autumn day, and Dad wasn't in
a hurry to get anywhere. He was enjoying being in the woods and surrounded
by nature. As he made his way through the forest, he came across
what he believed were some animal bones. He took him in to look at
them, but he wasn't all that interested, so he moved on. He
hadn't gone much farther when he came across some more bones, and he moved
on and he found more, and the deeper he moved into the woods,
the more bones he came across. That was when he noticed a trail of
bones leading up the hill. And all these remains lying around was odd,
and Dad was the curious type. He decided to follow the trail of bones,
and as he made his way up the hill, he noticed that the
bones seemed to be getting bigger. Some of them almost looked human a Dad
was a medic in the Marines. He was familiar with human bones, and
about halfway up the hill he started smelling something pungent. If he was a
medic in the Marines, he was a Navy corman. By the way,
just the heads up, My son was in the Marine corpns. I learned
all this stuff back to the story. At the top of the hill he
found a cave, and all around it were more bones of all shapes and
sizes. And when he approached the mouth of the cave, the odor got
so strong it nearly overpowered him. The smell burned his eyes and he fought
back the knee to vomit. As he looked into the black opening and a
pair of red eyes stared back at him. He jumped backwards and shock at
the glowing eyes that were easily seven feet off the ground. An instinct kicked
in and he emptied both barrels of a shotgun into the mouth of the cave.
But even as the shells were spent, he was turning and heading back
down the hill at break next speed. He didn't wait to see if he'd
hit anything or if he just made it angry. He got out of there.
My father was never an animated man. He believed in getting right to
the point. He kept a poker face at all times. But when he
told this story, I could see the fear in his eyes and I could
hear it in his voice. Years later, when I was thirteen, Dad
and I were girl hunting on my uncle's place in Taswell, Indiana. Like
always, while we were there, we were scouting for deer trails and scrapes
and rubs. It was a hot day in the middle of a dry spell,
and Dad decided we'd follow a creek bed that wasn't more than a few
water puddles here and there, And when we came around to ben in the
creek, Dad stopped so quickly that I nearly ran into his back. I'll
never forget the expression on his face when he turned around and looked at me.
It was out of place for him. I really only remember having seen
it when he spoke of that day at the cave. I was looking at
my dad and he was scared. I don't know what the hell made this
track, he said, but we're not going to stick around to find out.
I was born with my father's curious nature. I had to see what
he was talking about. I thought maybe he was joking with me, and
I looked around him, and at first I thought I was looking at some
kind of deer track where the deer might have slipped or something. And then
I realized next to the half dried up puddle was a track that must have
been eighteen inches long and nine inches wide. I could clearly see the toe
prints in the mud. Well, Dad was right. We didn't need to
stick around to see what had made that track. When we got back to
my uncle's house, my dad told him what we've found, and I guess
I half expected my uncle to laugh at us. Instead, he looked at
my dad straight in nine and he said, well, this doesn't surprise me.
My uncle had been hearing weird howls and noises for the past few weeks.
He told us that he saw a hairy man who was over seven feet
tall take two of his pigs. Now, I guess we didn't have to
wait around to find out what made the track. My uncle already knew