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My name is Stacy, and I
grew up in a little holler near the

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North Carolina Tennessee border in North Georgia. My childhood home is at the dead

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end of an old dirt road,
ten miles from town and surrounded by mountain

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wilderness. At least three hundred uninhabited
acres wraps around the backside of my parents'

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property, bordered by mountains, a
good sized creek, and several small springs.

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The area is home to a variety
of wildlife, and several generations of

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family have lived in this area over
the span of decades. Most of the

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current inhabitants of the neighborhood are my
relatives. It's a beautiful and peaceful and

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remote A good bit of the area
is densely forested, with a few old

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fields near the creek, and largely
untouched by man since the nineteen forties.

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There are still remnants of a barn
and a couple of old farmsteads built in

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the eighteen hundreds, so long unlived
in that they never had electricity, complete

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with rock and mud daubed chimneys.
They are a testament to the skill of

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the old natives and mountaineers that settled
this area of the Appalachian Foothills long ago.

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I guess you could tell I'm proud
to be from this area. But

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enough about that, I'll get on
with my story and tell you about my

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first strange experience with Bigfoot. It
was late fall nineteen ninety eight. I

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was nineteen years old. It was
dark thirty one night, and I had

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stepped out onto the porch to smoke
a cigarette. The air was cool,

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but there were still a few stray
crickets, hollering, and other soft sounds

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of the usual night creatures that I
was familiar with hearing at the time.

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I'd been outside a couple of minutes
when I noticed a sudden silence. Moments

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later, I heard it. I'm
guessing maybe a quarter mile away at most.

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It was a sound unlike anything I
had ever heard. It was a

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low, rumbling growl that rose to
a deep, loud roar. It sounded

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almost human, but much too loud
and way too deep to be human.

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In my mind, it sounded both
like man and beast, and it made

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the hair on the back of my
neck stand up, and it gave me

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goosebumps, and it still does when
I think about it. It seemed to

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go on for a good ten seconds
or more before dropping off, and it

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echoed across the countryside from one of
the high ridges south of my parents' place.

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One thing I could tell for sure, this thing was big, and

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it was mad. A few seconds
after the terrible hollering ended, every animal

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within a mile in all directions commenced
to raising all kinds of a ruckus.

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I thought, what in the hell
was that? In my mind, I

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was running through every type of creature
I could think of, trying to figure

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out exactly what I had just heard. At that time in my life,

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I didn't really believe in bigfoot,
nor had I given it much thought,

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but the thought entered my mind that
maybe, just maybe a bigfoot was what

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I heard, because nothing else I
could think of could make a sound like

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that. Could that have been a
bigfoot? Do they really exist? I

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thought to myself. Even though I
could tell it wasn't close enough to get

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me, I still felt really scared
and went inside For the rest of the

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night, and for several nights afterward, I felt nervous going out after dark

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for a cigarette. Time went on, and for the most part I forgot

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about the incident, and twenty years
later just up the road from my parents'

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house, I had an experience that
answered the questions I had in my mind

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that night, all those years ago. At the time, I had a

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teenager and a toddler, and we
all went to visit my parents, as

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we often did a couple of times
a week we lived in town, and

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very much enjoyed going to their home, not only to spend time with my

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parents, but to escape the traffic
and enjoy being near nature. We'd go

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on hikes through the woods, fishing
at the creek and seeing the many deer,

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turkey and whatnot right there in the
backyard. This was not one of

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those days. Though. My father
and I have never had a good relationship,

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and he could be pretty cantankerous at
times, and this particular evening he

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was being rather difficult, to put
it, Miley, and made a few

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comments that really stuck in my crawl. We loaded up in my old jeep

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and we left. It was right
about dark. My daughter had fallen asleep

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in her nana's lap. She was
sleeping peacefully in the car seat when we

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left out. When we started up
the road, my son and now were

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discussing the evening's events, and I
was blowing off a little steam, making

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quite a speech about what I thought
of the situation. I was actually into

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trying to make a point, so
much so that I briefly mentioned what I

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saw to my left about thirty feet
from the road down in an embankment.

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As it was walking up from the
woods. I saw the creature and interrupted

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myself in mid speech, saying,
and there's a bigfoot. And I continued

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on with the speech that I was
making as I did a double take.

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Looking back over my shoulder to the
left, I saw the creature step backward

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and ease behind a tree, turning
its upper body as if to hide behind

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the tree, but I could still
see its shoulder sticking out on both sides

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as it stood at this point perfectly
still. I slowly turned my head back

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towards the road in front of me
in disbelief, and I finally stopped ranting

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about the fresh straights of the visit. By this time, I was fifty

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feet past where I had seen the
creature and almost back to the paved road.

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The gravity of what I had just
seen began to set in, and

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at this point I fell completely stunned. For a split second, I thought

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about going back to get a better
look. But the realization that this thing

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was not only huge, but it
saw me made me push the accelerator harder

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and haul my tail out of there. It was eight feet tall and it

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was four feet wide. It had
no neck. Everything just sloped out at

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almost a forty five degree angle from
the head to the shoulders, but no

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indentation where the neck should be.
It was muscular, like a well built

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man, but the arms were a
little longer in proportion to the rest of

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the body. The moon glowed that
night and back lit the hairy chest,

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so I couldn't see its face,
but I could very clearly see the silhouette

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and that it was covered in short, dark fur or hair. It walked

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upright on two legs like a human. Seeing the creature in my distracted moment

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seemed almost as natural as seeing a
deer, a bear, or any other

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kind of animal. That is until
I really began to process what had just

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happened, And from that moment on, I still have a hard time believing

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that I really saw it, even
though I saw it plain as day.

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So that's my encounter with the bigfoot, and this story is true. I

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saw it. I've never gone into
the woods even one time since without thinking

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about that night and the fact that
they're real and they're out there. This

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was the summer of nineteen seventy five. I was twenty three. My boyfriend

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and I had planned to spend all
summer camping out on Mount Hook in the

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mountainous Lower Cascade Range in Washington State, out of the little Bavarian village of

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Leavenworth, Washington. We had heard
there was gold found there in the nineteen

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fifties, but the prospector died before
he could claim the spot where he discovered

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the gold. Since then, there
have been many people who hiked up the

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mountain in hopes of finding that gold
vein, but all had given up.

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We hiked up to the snow line
into fifteen foot deep snow drifts, which

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made walking extremely hard to travel on
foot carrying heavy packs. We went down

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the mountain to get out of the
snow and found an abandoned camp site with

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a small creek. Whoever abandoned it
left four wooden structures partially completed. One

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had a steel fifty five gallon drum
with a locking lid, which was buried

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in the ground up to the brim. The steel lid had been torn off

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and the contents that were inside were
scattered all over the place. Some of

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the cans had been twisted in half. It must have taken extreme strength to

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rip open a steel drum with a
massive steel locking lid like that. That

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was the first sign that there may
be something weird going on in this area.

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We settled on one cabin that was
farther away from the other three.

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It had only three sides, but
it was the most complete wooden structure and

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was made well and very sturdy.
We scrounged up some heavy plastic sheeting,

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which was enough to cover the full
missing side. We also found pots and

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pans left behind by those who had
abandoned the camp site. After about a

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week, we ran out of supplies, so we hiked out to replenish our

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food. We spent several weeks up
there and came down once a week for

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more supplies, and every time we
got back to our cabin, something had

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come in and trashed our camp,
making quite a mess. But strangely it

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it didn't damage the plastic like a
bear would have. You'd think that would

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discourage us, but it didn't.
The last week we were there, we

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discovered what looked like gold. We
broke camp and headed down the mountain,

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excited about our discovery. Right away
we began hearing noises. We thought it

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must be a bear or a deer, so we put it out of our

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minds. Then a rock flew by
our heads, which startled us, and

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we began to wonder what was going
on. Soon after that, a large

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branch landed right beside us. Almost
immediately we heard a very loud, horrific

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and deep guttural roar. The vibrations
hit our chest before we heard anything.

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The roar was deeper than a base
and raised in pitch. The creature followed

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us down the mountain, letting out
blood curdling roars each time. We'd take

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off, running, half sliding down
the mountain, only stomping again when he

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would let out another roar. It
was so close we should have been able

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to see it, but we couldn't. Then, to our shock and horror,

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we heard another one roar below us, which made us shiver with fear.

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They were hurting us to where they
wanted us to go. We changed

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our direction and were able to get
back down to our van. Needless to

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stay, we high tailed it out
of there. Never to return. Once

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you hear that roar no known animal
makes, it will give you nightmares for

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the rest of your life. The
people who built the campsite must have encountered

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these creatures too, and that is
why they left. Now, when I

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go into the woods, I always
think, is there one of those creatures

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out there? I know deep down
that we had encountered a bigfoot. Until

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this experience, I was a die
hard skeptic, but not anymore. I

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can still remember the exact date of
my first encounter. It was January twenty

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eight, twenty nineteen. It was
ten thirty at night, and I was

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taking my son's friend home. The
two of us crammed into my cheap little

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Toyota. Outside it was drizzling and
cold, and we were cruising along a

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slick clay dirt road. We pulled
up behind a truck that was moving much

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slower than we were. The truck
eventually turned left, and I was following

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right behind, creeping along as not
to end up in one of the six

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foot deep ditches that ran parallel with
both sides of the road. I was

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barely gaining traction in the mud through
the dark and the rain and the glare

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of the headlight. Something appeared to
be standing on the left side of the

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road. What happened so fast?
But it cleared the ditch in one stride

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and stepped in the path of my
car before going down on all fours,

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where it then sprang over the ditch
on the opposite side before it vanished into

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the night. It was so close
that I could see the red clay in

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its auburn colored hair. Had my
little four cylinder Toyota been traveling any faster,

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I would have hit it. It
wasn't big and broad at all.

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I remembered it as more tall and
lanky, like a teenager who's growing too

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fast and hasn't filled out or mastered
the movement of its own body. Its

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arms were unusually long, and they
hung way down, almost to its knees.

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I think my brain took a good
thirty seconds to process what had just

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happened. I didn't hit the brakes
or pull over for fear of getting stuck

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in the mud, or more likely
I was putting a safe distance between us

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and whatever that thing was. And
when I finally did stop, I looked

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over at the fifteen year old with
me. Did he see something too?

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Could he corroborate my story. I'm
never walking into these woods again at night,

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he muttered. I needed to hear
his assessment to prove I wasn't seeing

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things. I just saw something seven
feet tall across the road in front of

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us, and it was covered in
hair and walking like a man. Well,

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that just about covers it, I
reaffirmed. We lived fifteen miles out

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of town. I've been in tree
stands at five am filming deer on grass

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patches since I was ten years old. Now, I love nature in the

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outdoors, and my son's buddies had
grown up in these same woods that I

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was raised to be a survivalist,
and we're both very familiar with all the

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wildlife in our area. When we
pulled up at the house, he looked

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at me and he said, when
you get home, run inside, but

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call to let me know that you
made it. I knew he meant well,

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but I was really thinking, dude, I've got to dry five miles

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of slick dirt roads with no shoulders
back to my house in the middle of

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the night, and I basically just
saw the freaking Boogeyman. Of course I

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made it, or I wouldn't be
telling the story now I ran inside and

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locked my door for the first time
in a long while, and for three

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days I was afraid to leave my
house at night. I assumed that whatever

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I saw was stalking the woods,
and then it probably prefers the area because

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it isn't highly populated. I figured
that after living in this close proximity to

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humans, they don't appear to mean
any harm because I have meat on my

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bones and would make a nice snack
if it wanted to eat me. Now,

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I've done tons of research since then, and I've had one other encounter.

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Each incident made me fear the woods
when I formerly used to consider it

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a safe haven. I believe every
sisquatch legend, myth, or fable is

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built on a kernel of truth.
I used to think they lived in California,

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far away from northwest Florida, where
I live, not too far from

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Panama City. I honestly don't care
one way or the other if people believe

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me or not. I saw what
I saw with my own baby brown eyes.

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We did go back the next morning
once the weather broke, and of

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course there were no tracks at all. I think the only reason it came

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into view that night is because the
truck ahead of me was loud, and

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once it passed by, the creature
stepped out, not realizing my quiet little

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toyota was lagging right behind. A
few seconds either way, and we would

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have never seen it. And that
in itself is unnerving to me. I

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believe the government is aware of their
existence and for the most part, know

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where the colonies are located. They've
dedicated so many thousands of acres across America

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to our national forest where the highest
concentration of these animals reside. Are they

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a critically endangered species? And would
the government dare shut down all logging and

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mining in the name of not destroying
their natural habitat. Meanwhile, thousands of

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people continued to go missing without a
trace every year in works and forests,

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while the government continues to deny,
deny, deny,