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

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

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that show were compelling, but the
lack of irrefutable evidence was frustrating. I

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

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it didn't stop me from asking myself
that question whenever I had a spare minute

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

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was November twelfth, twenty fifteen,
the day before Friday the thirteenth, and

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two days before my niece's wedding on
the fourteenth. I wasn't going to the

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wedding. I was out of town
and I couldn't get the time off from

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work, so I decided to take
a day trip to a semi abandoned a

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farm outside of Stellville, Missouri,
where I had my camper part It was

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the time of year to winterrize it, and I brought my buddy along with

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me. Mike is mentally challenged,
but he was a good helper and generally

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a no nonsense kind of guy.
The farm was up the hill from a

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Christian summer camp that we had built. The camp was closed for the season,

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but I used the camper when it
was in session. The farmer who

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on the land allowed me to park
there year round. Aside from my camper,

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there were several sheds and lean tos
for animals and stalls for horses,

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and I used to feed them back
there when they were occupied. Back then,

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I could plug into the electricity and
draw water from a pump in the

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yard, but now that was vacant
and I could do neither. For that

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reason, I brought a small generator
with me so I could power the lights

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in the RV run the air compressor
that I would use to blow out the

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water line so that they wouldn't freeze
over. The grass had grown up quite

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a bit since I was there last. It was five feet high in places,

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and behind the camper was a barberire
fence. Beyond that it dropped off

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to a wooded ravine. We got
to work right away now, blue affel

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lines and added RV anti freeze where
needed. The last thing I needed to

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do before it got too dark and
we had to go home was to put

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the covering tart back on the camper
and tie it down. A severe storm

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had come through the area of the
night before and had blown it off.

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While I was up on the six
foot ladder and Mike held it steady for

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me. I could hear something walking
in the steep wood hills of the ravine,

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and as soon as I finished tying
down the tarp, I turned around

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and swept the ravine with a small
flashlight. I immediately hit eyeshine and it

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was six feet off the ground.
I also thought I detected movement. I

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looked down at Mike and I said, Mike, I think I see bigfoot.

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Well Mike laughed and he said,
Dan quit joking around. Well,

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something big is walking up there,
I told, and I'm not joking.

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Mike had reason not to believe me. I had a tendency to tease him

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from time to time. Once,
while we were building the camp, we

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took turns going out at night to
another building to use the bathroom facilities.

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When we went outside in the dark, we would howl, and then we

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came running back inside and we'd be
breathing heavily, and we'd tell Mike that

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we'd been chased by wolves. Mike
held as blighter as long as he could

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before finally venturing out with his flashlight
and a stick in his hand, and

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when he got outside, someone howled
from around the corner of the building,

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and then when the door shut,
we'd all howl with laughter. It was

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good natured fun, and I'm only
slightly ashamed of all that now, But

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it was that kind of stuff that
made Mike look at me now as if

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I were the boy who cried wolf. It wasn't until I repeated myself that

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he finally said, in his quiet, no nonsense way, Hey, let's

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get go grab my toolbox out of
the camper, I said, and let's

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get loaded up. I had my
own doubts as to what it was,

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but that lingering question in the back
of my head started whispering, is Bigfoot

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real? It was still pretty far
away, so I asked myself what the

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people on finding Bigfoot would do to
bring it in, and I remembered that

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they would do tree knocks. But
I was six feet up a lader in

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the middle of a hayfield. Even
if I had something to knock with,

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I didn't have a tree. So
I decided to slam my hand three times

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on the top of the camper.
That made a loud racket, But I

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forgot about Mike being inside, He
stuck his head out the door and he

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yelled, Dan, what are you
doing. I'm doing knocks to try to

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get the bigfoot to come closer.
I said, for once, I wasn't

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trying to scare him or pull his
leg, but the tremmor in his voice

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told me that I'd done a pretty
good job of it anyway. Don't do

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that, he demanded, Now,
let's get o. I couldn't tell if

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Mike believed it or not. I
wasn't sure if I believed it yet.

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The knocks failed to draw the eye
shined in closer, but they did get

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its attention. Now there was a
second set of eyes low to the ground,

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in closer to us. I trained
the light on them as they slowly

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stood up and became a tall creature. The hill was too steep to accurately

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judge how tall, but I knew
the eyes were set too far apart to

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belong to a man. I decided
that the other must have been curious and

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was trying to sneak up on me
to get a better look. Maybe it

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thought I was another bigfoot. With
the lighter mostly hidden in the tall grass,

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and from his angle down the hill, he probably saw me as being

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as tall as the camper. Unfortunately, both set of eyes were still too

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far away to make out any real
detail with my tiny flashlight. Again,

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I thought about finding bigfoot and what
they would have done to draw these creatures

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in, and I thought they would
have made whooping calls. Whoop, whoop,

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I yelled. Mike was back outside, now standing at the bottom of

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the ladder, and he yelled up
to me, Dan, what are you

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doing now? I'm trying to get
him in closer, I explained, Man,

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don't do that, he said,
more agitated than before. Let's go.

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I was sure now that I had
convinced him that there were bigfoot creeping

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around on the hillside. I flashed
the light out into the increasing darkness,

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and I now counted three sets of
eyes, and due to my call,

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they were coming closer, and Mike
was scared. He was ready to leave,

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but I wasn't. They were still
too far away to positively identify them,

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and that question in the back of
my head was begging for an answer.

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This might be my one chance to
prove to myself that bigfoot does exist.

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Each time I flashed the light on
a different set of eyes, they

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would freeze. Meanwhile, the other
two sets would slowly come closer. They

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still weren't close enough to identify them
with my pathetically insufficient little light. I

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had a bigger and better flashlight on
my truck show. I showed Mike the

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different sets of eyes and I told
him to keep them in sight while I

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went to grab it. The batteries
and the other light weren't very good,

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so it wasn't much better than the
first light, but at least now we

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had two lights on two of them. Now only one creature at a time

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was slowly coming ever closer. We
kept them at bay by rotating the lights

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from one set of eyes to another, but not close enough to fully identify

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what we were seeing. Despite this, they were getting too close for my

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personal comfort. They'd already reached that
point for Mike, and once again I

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asked myself what the people on finding
Bigfoot would do, and the answer was

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that they would stay around and try
to get a picture. I reached into

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my pocket to pull up my phone, but common sense was battling with my

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curiosity, and at one to heck
with this, I said, and I

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told Mike what he'd been wanting to
hear for several minutes. Let's get out

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of here. We couldn't just jump
in the truck and go though. The

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ladder and the compressor and the generator
all had to be loaded. I told

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Mike to hold them off with the
flashlight while I rounded up all that stuff

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and put it in the truck faster
than I have ever loaded anything in my

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life. And by the time I
got it done, Mike was already jumping

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in on the passenger side of the
truck. Okay, great, I thought,

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without the flashlights to slow them down, they could be anywhere. The

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barber O fence wasn't likely to slow
them down. They might even be in

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the tall grass close to the truck. I hit to kill switch on the

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generator, which had been running the
whole time in the back of mind truck.

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The little light inside the camper.
Oh man, Sorry to interrupt the

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story there. I just had a
stink bug crawling on me. I could

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feel it a few minutes ago,
and I thought I was just itching,

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But then I smelled it and I
had to I hate killing bugs. I

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don't even like to kill bugs,
but man, these stink bugs are everywhere.

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Okay where was I? Oh great? I thought, without the flashlights

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to slow them down. They could
be anywhere the barb wire fence wasn't likely

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

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the truck. Well, I hit
the kill switch on the generator, which

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had been running the whole time in
the back of the truck. The little

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light inside the camper went out,
and we were left in the dark.

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The silence, however, was deafening, with nothing but stars overhead. I

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made my way up to the driver's
side door. I reached in and I

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turned on the headlights. We still
I couldn't see beyond the camper to our

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sides because of the tall grass all
around us. And I stood there with

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the door open, trying not to
make any noise, and I was listening

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intently for any sound, anything,
And for the longest time, it was

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incredibly silent. And then I heard
what sounded like a grunt or a snort

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over by the cedar trees beyond the
barberar fence. In a moment of instant

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and absolute clarity, I knew that
this was it. This was my only

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chance to answer that question that was
eating at my brain. If I ran

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now, I might never have this
chance again. I had to know.

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I had to know if Bigfoot exists. With my last bit of courage,

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I told Mike to wait in the
truck and I grabbed a flashlight and I

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said, I'll be right back,
Dan. What are you doing, Mike

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cried, let's get out of here. He's gonna rush you. Bigfoot's gonna

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rush you. I could hear the
tears in his voice, I could feel

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the almost tangible panic that was taking
over, and I knew that he was

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probably right. I should have listened
to him, I should have got a

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side of there. But that question
just kept eating at me. I had

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to know. Ignoring every ounce of
common sense I had, I continued forward,

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keeping close to the camper, and
with trembling hands, I pointed the

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light toward the cedar trees and illuminated
three horses behind a fence. Apparently they

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had been grazing on the hill and
I call them up, probably expecting to

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receive apples for their efforts. Finally
I had my proof, proof that people

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really do let their imaginations run away
with them. And to your readers,

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although this was not an actual Bigfoot
encounter, ninety nine point nine percent of

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it is true. The only part
that was ever so slightly embellished to make

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me look and to make it better
reading was the part about the snort.

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I was pretty sure it was a
horse when I heard it, and in

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my defense, I had never seen
them on that side of the fence before

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and the form was deserted. But
still I wasn't one hundred percent certain that

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they were horses until I actually saw
them with my eyes. After all,

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the experts on finding bigfoot had taught
me that bigfoot are known to be excellent

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mimics. Little did I know that
I had already encountered them when I was

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growing up. But I didn't realize
that then. What I was seeing,

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smelling, and experiencing my early encounters
you have already recounted in your episode entitled

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The Missouri Monster Revisited Bigfoot Encounters all
over Missouri Marathon number eighty two