Speaker 1: Now one of your pudding. I got a string going
Speaker 1: on here, something just because my dog. Something killed your dog.
Speaker 1: My dog. We're flying through the air over the tree.
Speaker 1: I don't know how it did it, Okay, Damn, I'm
Speaker 1: really confused. All I saw was my dog coming over
Speaker 1: the fence and he was dead. And once you hit
Speaker 1: the ground like, I didn't see any cars. All I
Speaker 1: saw was my dog coming over the fence. Sat, what
Speaker 1: are you putting? We got some wonder or something crawling
Speaker 1: around out here. Did you see what it was or
Speaker 1: was it was? Standing enough? I'm out here looking through
Speaker 1: the window now and I don't see anything. I don't
Speaker 1: want to go outside. Jesus Quice, you better hello, hit
Speaker 1: the body out here, quin, I'm out there. It's thought
Speaker 1: of a bitch of about tix fort nine. I don't know.
Speaker 1: Easy him out there. Yeah, I'm walking right, head deep
Speaker 1: in the wild woods of Alaska, where killer temperatures leave
Speaker 1: even the thermostats frozen solid. We are on the hunt
Speaker 1: for a legend that refuses us to die. I am
Speaker 1: in the company of Michael Thompson, a law enforcement officer
Speaker 1: who has spent thirty three years on the trail of Bigfoot.
Speaker 1: Or sasquatch to give the mysterious beast its proper name.
Speaker 1: Michael fifty two is clutching a cast made from a
Speaker 1: footprint discovered on a track near Bluff Creek in California
Speaker 1: in nineteen sixty three. He wears a beret bearing a
Speaker 1: silhouette of the ape like creature, and he won't be
Speaker 1: giving up his quest for answers anytime soon. People think
Speaker 1: I'm a crank, Michael admits, but the evidence is overwhelming
Speaker 1: when it comes to proving that Bigfoot is alive. The
Speaker 1: rest of the world wants a body alive or dead,
Speaker 1: but I think there's enough physical evidence left behind to
Speaker 1: prove that there's something out there evading people. The most
Speaker 1: important evidence are tracks. They are the most numerous and reoccurring.
Speaker 1: I have seen them myself in Island Lake and hidden
Speaker 1: lakes in several spots where I live. His research suggests
Speaker 1: that the beasts can weigh up to ninety two stone,
Speaker 1: have twenty seven inch footprints, and are up to ten
Speaker 1: feet tall. Michael is currently probing a report from Tetlin,
Speaker 1: eastern Alaska. In September, a moose hunter was in a
Speaker 1: tent when a creature walked past brushing the canvas. Unexplained
Speaker 1: tracks were found close by. American reports of mysterious ape
Speaker 1: like beasts go back more than four hundred years. Experts
Speaker 1: believe a creature could have survived in Alaska's deserted icy
Speaker 1: tundra on a diet of moose, caribou, coyote, and berries.
Speaker 1: Bigfoot truly became a phenomenon after Russia sold Alaska to
Speaker 1: America in eighteen sixty seven. Fur trappers arrived in the
Speaker 1: eighteen eighties, and since then there have been three hundred
Speaker 1: and fifty official sightings which are considered reliable. But on
Speaker 1: top of that, some forty five thousand people in America
Speaker 1: have submitted online reports of their own encounters to Michael's
Speaker 1: Bigfoot Filled Researchers organization website, and while enthusiast ghost hunters,
Speaker 1: UFO truthers, and spiritualists to bicker online about whether Bigfoot
Speaker 1: is an alien, a shape shifter, or something that exists
Speaker 1: in a parallel dimension, Michael has no doubt that it exists.
Speaker 1: He is also convinced that there are many Bigfoot out
Speaker 1: there and longs for the day he comes face to
Speaker 1: face with one. The hunter goes on the theory that
Speaker 1: only one exists is impossible to be true. There have
Speaker 1: been countless reports of individual sasquatches, as well as a
Speaker 1: mother and her child. Other people have heard groups of
Speaker 1: voices while out in the country, adding weight to the theory.
Speaker 1: Many sightings have been made hundreds of miles upon art.
Speaker 1: Only one US state, Hawaii, has never had a reported sighting.
Speaker 1: It is far from mythical. It is very flesh and blood,
Speaker 1: an actual physical being. Because it leaves tracks and other
Speaker 1: evidence that cannot be attributed to any other animal. What
Speaker 1: we're talking about here is the king of the mountain.
Speaker 1: A man would be no match for it. A sasquatch
Speaker 1: is the apex predator in America. It will kill anything
Speaker 1: before it, even a grizzly bear. If I was to
Speaker 1: ever see one, I would try to record as much
Speaker 1: evidence as I could, but I would not try to
Speaker 1: kill it. Why would I want to endanger what I
Speaker 1: have pursued more than half my life. This is not
Speaker 1: some hobby to me, It's a burning obsession. To those
Speaker 1: who doubt, I say, prove us wrong. No one can
Speaker 1: prove it doesn't exist, and I can't prove one hundred
Speaker 1: percent that it does it's a stalemate. But my hope
Speaker 1: is that one day I will find sasquatch. It would
Speaker 1: make me world famous. Next year marks the fiftieth and
Speaker 1: of versary of the famous Patterson Gimblin video, in which
Speaker 1: a supposed female Bigfoot was filmed close to a logging
Speaker 1: road in California. Despite numerous attempts to confirm or discredit
Speaker 1: the nineteen sixty seven footage, no one has proved its authenticity.
Speaker 1: It is expected that the anniversary will lead to a
Speaker 1: renewed effort to substantiate Bigfoot's existence. Alaska boasts more sightings
Speaker 1: than any other state, making it the perfect location for
Speaker 1: the headquarters of Sasquatch Tracker, three hundred and forty miles
Speaker 1: east of Anchorage. It is from here that Michael runs
Speaker 1: his Bigfoot website. While diligently compiling reports of sidings, he
Speaker 1: treats witnesses just like those involved in a crime, interviewing
Speaker 1: them for hours in a bid to extract every piece
Speaker 1: of information possible. They also fill out a detailed and
Speaker 1: counter report survey designed to weed out the hoaxers. Michael explains,
Speaker 1: I am looking for a pattern, some forensic detail. I
Speaker 1: go over and over their interview with a fine tooth comb.
Speaker 1: I look for inconsistencies in their story. They have to
Speaker 1: prove that what they saw was a potential sighting rather
Speaker 1: than something like a moose. I always go into it
Speaker 1: from the position of I do not believe this person,
Speaker 1: and they have to prove it to me. Once I'm
Speaker 1: happy that their information is genuine, my work really begins. Michael,
Speaker 1: who holds a degree in law enforcement and archaeology and Heritage,
Speaker 1: supplies hunters with evidence kits and a guide to collect DNA.
Speaker 1: The packs are similar to those used by FBI forensic
Speaker 1: teams and include scalpels, collection tubes, cotton swabs, surgical masks,
Speaker 1: glass vials, and specimen transport bags. Magnifying lenses, tape measures,
Speaker 1: and a photographic scale bar are also provided. Reports of
Speaker 1: a mythical beast primarily known for inhabiting the forest and
Speaker 1: the Pacific Northwest, are starting to gain a big foothold
Speaker 1: in the tar Hill State skunk Ape Sasqua. Bigfoot, the
Speaker 1: creature that some believe to be an indigenous North American
Speaker 1: bipedal primate, reportedly has been seen in Canada in every
Speaker 1: state but Hawaii. The most alleged sightings have been in
Speaker 1: Washington with six hundred and fifty three, while Delaware has
Speaker 1: the fewest with only five. According to the Bigfoot Filled
Speaker 1: Researchers Organization or BFRO, the study of Bigfoot and other
Speaker 1: such creatures, including thunderbirds and chupacabra is called cryptozoology, and
Speaker 1: the animals that the scientific world has yet to recognize
Speaker 1: are referred to as cryptids. Native American legends pre dating
Speaker 1: European arrival on the continent describe such a beast thought
Speaker 1: to be a forest spirit. There are several names for
Speaker 1: the North American cryptid, sasquatch in the Pacific northwestern Canada,
Speaker 1: skunk ape in the swamps and forests of the South,
Speaker 1: and grassman in the Midwest. Bigfoot may also be related
Speaker 1: to the Canadian windigo, but legends and sightings aren't limited
Speaker 1: to this side of the planet, as similar creatures have
Speaker 1: been reported around the world, including the Yetti or abominable
Speaker 1: snowman of the Himalayas, the Alma of Mongolia, and the
Speaker 1: Yowie of Australia. The North American creatures are said to
Speaker 1: be very muscular, stand between six and ten feet tall,
Speaker 1: and are covered in hair which varies in color from
Speaker 1: black to reddish brown. The name Bigfoot comes from the
Speaker 1: reported human like tracks that range from thirteen to twenty
Speaker 1: four inches in length. Despite the skeptics, sixteen percent of
Speaker 1: Americans believe Bigfoot actually exists, according to a California Magazine
Speaker 1: article from June. Some researchers think the creatures, if real,
Speaker 1: are a type of great ape, while others postulate that
Speaker 1: they could be descendants of early hominids. There have been
Speaker 1: at least ninety six reported sightings in North Carolina, although
Speaker 1: the BFRO website doesn't list any since twenty fifteen. The
Speaker 1: three most recent reports that year were close to home,
Speaker 1: two in Montgomery County and one in Roberson County. The
Speaker 1: BFRO lists sidings in forty five counties from the mountains
Speaker 1: to the coast, with Montgomery County being the most popular
Speaker 1: spot with thirteen. There are six reported sidings in both
Speaker 1: Onslow and Cleveland Counties. The only reported siding in Richmond
Speaker 1: County is from an unnamed hunter who claims to have
Speaker 1: found evidence off Grassy Island Road outside Ellerby in two
Speaker 1: thousand eight. According to the report, the hunter noticed a
Speaker 1: stinking odour that is often associated with close encounters of
Speaker 1: the harry kind. He also said that it sounded like
Speaker 1: something was following me on the way in there, and
Speaker 1: it sounded like someone was hitting trees with baseball bats.
Speaker 1: The hunter also claims to have found one track about
Speaker 1: twenty three inches long with a two inch impression into
Speaker 1: the ground. By comparison, the hunter said that he himself
Speaker 1: weighed three hundred pounds and his track only sank a
Speaker 1: half an inch. About two weeks later, the hundred denotes
Speaker 1: in his report he was hunting near a stream and
Speaker 1: heard a huge splash in the water. Thinking it was
Speaker 1: a deer, he waited, but he never saw anything. When
Speaker 1: he went out to investigate, the hunter says that he
Speaker 1: found a single track that was twenty plus inches long
Speaker 1: and saw other signs like stick formations and large patches
Speaker 1: of vegetation that looked like it had been ran over
Speaker 1: by a steam roller, and several tracks in the leaves
Speaker 1: with long strides of about four feet. After he found
Speaker 1: the first track, the hunter says that he called John Shaw,
Speaker 1: a biologist with the North Carolina Wildlife Resources Commission. The
Speaker 1: hunter claimed that Shaw, when shown the track, said that
Speaker 1: he could see what I was saying, but the track
Speaker 1: was contaminated, so we left it at that, with the
Speaker 1: second track being at the bottom of the creek. The
Speaker 1: hunter said that he didn't bother calling Shaw again. Shaw
Speaker 1: said on Monday that he had no recollection of that
Speaker 1: specific incident, adding that the Commission sometimes gets calls to
Speaker 1: check out claims of EVA evidence. In the other story
Speaker 1: section of the report, the hunter says that he knows
Speaker 1: two men who claim to have seen a bigfoot on
Speaker 1: the Richmond County side of the Blue It Falls Dam
Speaker 1: in nineteen eighty one, and an ambulance driver who said
Speaker 1: he saw one on the way back to the hospital
Speaker 1: in Troy. Although a follow up investigation by BFRO investigators
Speaker 1: come up empty handed, the report states investigators were confident
Speaker 1: that the witnesses were reliable. Across the river, an Anson
Speaker 1: County farmer claims to have had a close encounter in
Speaker 1: May of nineteen fifty six. According to a newspaper report,
Speaker 1: Henry Milton said that his watermelon patch was rated by
Speaker 1: a huge beast that left a track that was thirteen
Speaker 1: inches long and five inches wide, twice as large as
Speaker 1: a six hundred and fifty pound black bear, and it
Speaker 1: had three inch claw marks. The report never gives an
Speaker 1: approximate height of this creature, but Milton said that he
Speaker 1: saw it briefly, first mistaking it for a deer. It
Speaker 1: was foggy, and when I got a closer look at
Speaker 1: this moving object, it appeared to be a man in
Speaker 1: a stooped over position, Melton said. Then the beast came
Speaker 1: out of the melon patch and disappeared. While most reports
Speaker 1: described the bigfoot as being shy and not aggressive, there
Speaker 1: had been stories of attacks and abductions. A newspaper report
Speaker 1: from eighteen seventy five describes a short swamp monster approximately
Speaker 1: five feet tall, attempting to abduct two children from an
Speaker 1: area about fifteen miles north of New Bern in Craven County.
Speaker 1: The father of one of the children confronted the creature
Speaker 1: and knocked it head over heels with a well directed
Speaker 1: blow on the forehead, causing it to drop the kids.
Speaker 1: It then scrambled to its feet and ran into the
Speaker 1: woods with lightning rapidity. Prior to the abduction attempt, the
Speaker 1: beast had reportedly been preying on poultry, garden vegetables, and
Speaker 1: green corn at an alarming extent. A woman reports seeing Bigfoot.
Speaker 1: I drove to twelve foot Davis Graveside and picnic grounds
Speaker 1: in Peace River with my boyfriend. We walked on the
Speaker 1: hillside behind the grave site. There were no birds chirping.
Speaker 1: Everything was silent, and the hairs on my neck were
Speaker 1: standing up. I chose to go to the outside toilet facilities.
Speaker 1: My boyfriend went back to the car. When I got
Speaker 1: about two feet from the washroom door, I saw a dark,
Speaker 1: hairy shadow move and I heard a heavy, outgoing breath,
Speaker 1: and there was some musky stench in the air. The
Speaker 1: toilet facilities were about eight to nine feet high in
Speaker 1: a pyramid shape. This thing was standing beside the toilet,
Speaker 1: and I estimated its height at at least seven to
Speaker 1: seven and a half feet tall. I was so scared
Speaker 1: I decided to forget about the washroom trip. I started
Speaker 1: to walk away towards the grave side, and my friend,
Speaker 1: who had been watching the whole time, yield at me
Speaker 1: to get back to the car. I turned around and
Speaker 1: looked behind me, and I felt immediate terror. This thing
Speaker 1: was now down on its front arms with its bum
Speaker 1: in the air, pushing itself along in an ambling fashion,
Speaker 1: following behind me about four feet away, and it appeared
Speaker 1: to be sniffing at me. It had dark blondish colored hair,
Speaker 1: not like a bear. Its hair was sparse on its body,
Speaker 1: with more hair on the arms and legs. This thing
Speaker 1: had an ape like face with very little hair, but
Speaker 1: more on the head. The hair looked extremely coarse, almost
Speaker 1: like a horse's mane in winter. I quickly ran to
Speaker 1: the car, jumped in, and we sped around the corner
Speaker 1: and down the hill. As we were speeding away, this
Speaker 1: thing rose up and tried to chase the car a
Speaker 1: short ways. It was angry, standing straight up, more like
Speaker 1: a human, and it was swinging its arms and screaming.
Speaker 1: We barely got away from it. It followed us down
Speaker 1: the hillside of short Ways. When I came home, I
Speaker 1: was so upset. I told my mother. She in turn
Speaker 1: pasted this information along, and someone went up there the
Speaker 1: next day but didn't see the creature, but they did
Speaker 1: find some small tufts of hair. And stay tuned for
Speaker 1: more sasquatch ot to see. We'll be right back after
Speaker 1: these messages. It's been about thirty years and I still
Speaker 1: have these details stuck in my head, and I imagine
Speaker 1: I always will. A person does not survive that kind
Speaker 1: of terror without remembering it for the rest of their life.
Speaker 1: This incident occurred in nineteen seventy five, when she was
Speaker 1: just eighteen years old. She says that her boyfriend, who
Speaker 1: was with her at the time of the incident, is
Speaker 1: now deceased. She recalled driving up to that location with
Speaker 1: him on a late September evening around six thirty to
Speaker 1: seven o'clock PM for a walk. They strolled over to
Speaker 1: the lookout point, and when they were walking back to
Speaker 1: the car, she decided that she had to stop and
Speaker 1: use the lady's room. She had heard a deep breath
Speaker 1: exhale within twenty feet of the facilities. She assumed that
Speaker 1: it was a bear, so she started backing out slowly,
Speaker 1: as if they were a bear in the brush. Then
Speaker 1: she saw the animal standing upright next to the washroom.
Speaker 1: Her boyfriend was parked more than thirty feet away. He
Speaker 1: saw the animal and said, get in the car now.
Speaker 1: When she looked back at the animal, it was five
Speaker 1: to six feet away from her, down on all fours,
Speaker 1: and it was sniffing the air behind her. It was
Speaker 1: crawling in an awkward position with its rear end up
Speaker 1: in the air, like kids do when they're crawling on
Speaker 1: their hands and knees, and they're straight legged. Due to
Speaker 1: how close this witness was to the subject, she was
Speaker 1: able to report a lot of detail. She said that
Speaker 1: the hair was copper brown in color. It had more
Speaker 1: hair on its limbs and on its body and less
Speaker 1: on its ape like face and on its head. She
Speaker 1: described the hair to be coarse, like a horse's mane.
Speaker 1: Once she got into the car, the animal stood up
Speaker 1: on two legs and started this loud screeching sound and
Speaker 1: went into an angry fit and chased them as the
Speaker 1: vehicle drove away. Bennington County, Vermont, two thousand and three,
Speaker 1: a Weanowski man believed that he saw a big foot
Speaker 1: type creature at dusk while driving north on Route seven
Speaker 1: on Wednesday at about seven ten pm. Reydy Frame forty five,
Speaker 1: was heading back up north after visiting his daughter at
Speaker 1: Southern Vermont College when he spotted a six foot plus tall,
Speaker 1: two hundred and seventy pound big black thing walking upright
Speaker 1: near the highest point of elevation on Route seven. It
Speaker 1: was hairy from the top of its head to the
Speaker 1: bottom of his feet, said Defrayane. It was not walking
Speaker 1: like a normal person. Although Defrane could not see the
Speaker 1: animal's face, he said. From his vantage point, which was
Speaker 1: about one hundred and forty feet away, he could see
Speaker 1: that the creature had very long arms and was covered
Speaker 1: in long black hair. He said, it walked east into
Speaker 1: the woods toward Glastonbury Mountain. The first thing I thought
Speaker 1: was this was a gorilla costume. I thought it was
Speaker 1: a joke, he said. Then I put two and two together.
Speaker 1: There were no houses or abandoned cars nearby, so Dufrayne
Speaker 1: surmised that this dark creature could not have been a person. Furthermore,
Speaker 1: Defrayne has been an avid hunter since the age of fifteen,
Speaker 1: and he says he knows his animals. It was not
Speaker 1: a moose or a bear, he said. Although he had
Speaker 1: heard of the bigfoot phenomenon before, Dufrayne said he had
Speaker 1: never heard of anything happening like that in Vermont. Dufrayne
Speaker 1: also attested that he had not been drinking or doing
Speaker 1: drugs on Wednesday, and he has no history of mental illness.
Speaker 1: Why would somebody be walking down the road like that,
Speaker 1: Dufrayne said he asked himself at the time, I kicked
Speaker 1: myself for not turning back. Defrane continued driving north to
Speaker 1: his home. He said that at his job at a
Speaker 1: car dealership in Burlington on Thursday, people were having a
Speaker 1: laugh at his expense when he retold his story. Lieutenant
Speaker 1: District Chief Dane Hathaway of the Vermont Fish and Wildlife
Speaker 1: Department said that that was the first time he had
Speaker 1: heard of anything like that during his thirty two years
Speaker 1: working for the state. His view on the siding was
Speaker 1: a down to earth one. It was a black bear,
Speaker 1: said Hathaway. He said that black bears do stand on
Speaker 1: their hind legs, and in some cases they can actually
Speaker 1: walk on their hind legs. Train bears do it all
Speaker 1: the time, he said. It doesn't happen very often, but
Speaker 1: they do do that. People see a lot of strange
Speaker 1: things in the woods, said Hathaway, like catamount, but these
Speaker 1: often turn out to be tricks of the mind. Your
Speaker 1: mind does strange things to you sometimes, he said. Retired
Speaker 1: game warden Bob Monley, seventy three, of Bennington, said that
Speaker 1: during his thirty five years with the state, he has
Speaker 1: had a lot of strange calls, but none quite like
Speaker 1: the one Defrane describes from Wednesday. He, like Hathaway, believes
Speaker 1: that the creature was probably a moose or a bear,
Speaker 1: as they both have dark fur. The mind tells you
Speaker 1: what you think you saw, says Momley. However, Dufrayne is
Speaker 1: not the only one to report strange sightings of such
Speaker 1: creatures in the Bennington area. In fact, The New York
Speaker 1: Times reported on October eighteenth, eighteen seventy nine, that two
Speaker 1: young Vermont hunters saw a wild man while hunting in
Speaker 1: the mountains south of Pownell. The Time said that on
Speaker 1: October Mber seventeenth, eighteen seventy nine, the two young men
Speaker 1: described the creature as being about five feet high, resembling
Speaker 1: a man in form and movement, but covered all over
Speaker 1: in bright red hair, and having a long, scraggly beard
Speaker 1: with very wild eyes. When first seen, the creature sprang
Speaker 1: from behind a rocky cliff and started for the woods nearby.
Speaker 1: When mistaking it for a bear or other wild animal,
Speaker 1: one of the two men fired, and it is thought
Speaker 1: wounded it. For the fierce cries of pain and rage,
Speaker 1: it turned on its assailants, driving them back at high speed.
Speaker 1: They lost their guns and ammunition in the fight and
Speaker 1: dared not to return for fear of encountering this strange being.
Speaker 1: Other accounts are much more recent. According to a report
Speaker 1: printed at the Space on the Run newsletter website in
Speaker 1: December nineteen eighty nine, a man from Eden in Lamole
Speaker 1: County found footprints in the snow measuring twelve to fourteen
Speaker 1: inches in length and about six inches wide. This was
Speaker 1: in an area that was about ten miles from the
Speaker 1: nearest house in East Haven. In October nineteen seventy six,
Speaker 1: a woman who was reading in the woods saw something
Speaker 1: like the creature that Defrain saw. It had a muscular neck,
Speaker 1: a large head, and broad shoulders. It stood between eight
Speaker 1: to eleven feet in height, with ape like hair and
Speaker 1: long arms. A similar account and description was given by
Speaker 1: a boy in Essex Junction in nineteen ninety four. Back
Speaker 1: in two thousand and four, my husband and I were
Speaker 1: given three of our grandchildren to raise. The boys were
Speaker 1: aged one and a half three and four and a
Speaker 1: half years old. The boys were followed a few months
Speaker 1: later by their sister, a newborn, who was also given
Speaker 1: to us to raise. After having raised our own children,
Speaker 1: my husband and I found ourselves once again new parents.
Speaker 1: We lived in a small town in New England, so
Speaker 1: small that you could step out of the house and
Speaker 1: see the police station, fire department, and post office just
Speaker 1: beyond the house. When I was young, we had stop
Speaker 1: signs downtown where the stoplights are now. My grandmother and
Speaker 1: grandfather were born there, and I lived there for six decades.
Speaker 1: In that town, it was the kind of place where
Speaker 1: if you needed vegetables for supper, you went to a
Speaker 1: neighbor's house who had a garden, took where you needed
Speaker 1: and left the money on their front porch. We lived
Speaker 1: there on the main street, but we were surrounded by
Speaker 1: many forested acres. Three rivers ran through the town, and
Speaker 1: we had a large field behind our house. There were
Speaker 1: many fields throughout the town, and the other towns nearby
Speaker 1: were of similar make up. There were also many farms
Speaker 1: in the area and the neighboring towns as well. They
Speaker 1: were very New England type towns, small, comfy and cozy.
Speaker 1: When the children first came to live with us, both
Speaker 1: my husband and I worked. He worked at the transit
Speaker 1: company in a local city and I worked as a
Speaker 1: pair ofalegal. My job was a total of a four
Speaker 1: hour commute, two hours in the morning and two hours
Speaker 1: at night. I would be gone from the house twelve
Speaker 1: hours a day, at a minimum. I often worked on
Speaker 1: weekends too. My husband took a leave of absence from
Speaker 1: his job and stayed home with the children for two
Speaker 1: and a half years. When he returned to work, he
Speaker 1: would work the night shift that enabled him to watch
Speaker 1: the children during the day. He did his best with
Speaker 1: the children while I was at work, and given the circumstances,
Speaker 1: he did a good job. One day after work, when
Speaker 1: the youngest children were six and four, respectively, I came
Speaker 1: home to find the house in a state of disarray.
Speaker 1: Supper hadn't been made, and the kids were running up
Speaker 1: to me with quite a story about a big gorilla
Speaker 1: that had been outside all day. The two youngest let
Speaker 1: me know that during the afternoon they saw a big
Speaker 1: gorilla in front of the house running along the street.
Speaker 1: They said it was very fast. Then the big gorilla
Speaker 1: jumped our picket fence and ran into our yard. The
Speaker 1: children said that they had their noses pressed against the
Speaker 1: window pane, and the big gorilla came up to the window,
Speaker 1: growled at them, and then pushed its paws against the window.
Speaker 1: The children said that they tried to wake up my husband,
Speaker 1: who had fallen asleep on the couch, but they couldn't
Speaker 1: rouse him. The big gorilla ran into the backyard, where
Speaker 1: it broke some car windows and threw about some trash cans.
Speaker 1: I didn't disbelieve the children. It was just that I
Speaker 1: was too exhausted to deal with it and responded with
Speaker 1: my that's nice comment that I used for anything I
Speaker 1: couldn't handle at the moment. I do recall reading in
Speaker 1: the newspaper a few days later that the police were
Speaker 1: warning folks about vehicle damage, but I never gave it
Speaker 1: any further thought. I didn't give it any further thought,
Speaker 1: even though a few years prior to the big gorilla incident,
Speaker 1: I had seen a very large dead wolf that I
Speaker 1: presumed had been hit by a car laying on the roadside.
Speaker 1: It was not a coyote, nor was it a coy
Speaker 1: dog that we had in the area. I had seen
Speaker 1: pictures of wolves, and this one was immense. I had
Speaker 1: personally seen coy dogs while riding my horse along the trails.
Speaker 1: The wolf body was gone the next day, and no
Speaker 1: mention by the authorities of any wolf sidings was in
Speaker 1: the newspaper. I thought that was sort of unusual. Did
Speaker 1: we have wolves in our area? Wouldn't that be Newsworthy.
Speaker 1: Did anyone else see this wolf? Obviously someone had, because
Speaker 1: its body was gone the following day. I also didn't
Speaker 1: give the big gorilla story much further thought, even though
Speaker 1: years before the children came, both my husband and I
Speaker 1: had witnessed a large dog type footprint in our backyard.
Speaker 1: We mentioned those prints to a friend of ours who
Speaker 1: was the animal control officer in a nearby town, who
Speaker 1: didn't seem too surprised by our find. However, we never
Speaker 1: discussed it any further. I didn't give the big gorilla
Speaker 1: story much thought either, even though about this time we
Speaker 1: saw the large dog prints in our backyard and our
Speaker 1: cats had started to go missing. I found one of
Speaker 1: our cats, Peter, the best hunter in town, high up
Speaker 1: on a neighbor's roof. The house was three stories, with
Speaker 1: the first floor and second floor occupied by tenants, with
Speaker 1: an attic on the third floor. Lots of the older
Speaker 1: homes in New England always had full attics. I called
Speaker 1: for Peter and I managed to get in to the
Speaker 1: building and climbed up to the second floor with a
Speaker 1: closed basket. I climbed up on the porch railing and
Speaker 1: put the basket above my head up to the house
Speaker 1: gutters and Peter eventually dropped in it. Thankfully, we managed
Speaker 1: to save our wonderful cat. Even some of our friends
Speaker 1: asked why Peter was on the roof. Peter wasn't scared
Speaker 1: of anything, but I still was not connecting the dots.
Speaker 1: But back to the big gorilla story. When the children
Speaker 1: got a little older, we moved to North Carolina. It
Speaker 1: was in North Carolina, when the children were nearer their
Speaker 1: teen years that I found a dog man Encounter's program
Speaker 1: on YouTube. I listened intently to the narratives on the program. Recently,
Speaker 1: while driving down the street, I connected the dots. The
Speaker 1: idea of it jolted me and my brain awake. Wait
Speaker 1: a minute, I thought, did they say big gorilla and
Speaker 1: something very fast when the children told me their story?
Speaker 1: Did the children have an encounter with something those years back?
Speaker 1: I immediately spoke with our twelve year old and fourteen
Speaker 1: year old separately. Do you remember that time that you
Speaker 1: told me the story about the big gorilla? The twelve
Speaker 1: year old energetically told me every single thing she remembered.
Speaker 1: She said the animal was very large and very fast.
Speaker 1: It was covered in long black hair and had a long,
Speaker 1: bushy tail. It growled, and it had paws with fingers.
Speaker 1: It had stood up and pushed up on the window
Speaker 1: of those paws. It ran very fast and jumped over
Speaker 1: the fence. It had ran into the backyard and made
Speaker 1: a lot of noise while it was breaking things. The
Speaker 1: twelve year old told me that it didn't have the
Speaker 1: face of a gorilla or a monkey, but she couldn't
Speaker 1: tell more about the face because of all the hair.
Speaker 1: The fourteen year old shivered when I ask if he
Speaker 1: remembered it. He said that he would never forget that
Speaker 1: thing coming into the yard. He remembers it clearly, as
Speaker 1: if it were yesterday. He too remembers the swiftness of
Speaker 1: the creature and the black hair that covered it, and
Speaker 1: how it jumped over the fence and was running a
Speaker 1: muk from the front yard into the backyard art He
Speaker 1: said he still has no idea what it was, but
Speaker 1: he hopes that he never sees anything like that again.
Speaker 1: The children now know about dog Man, Bigfoot, and other cryptids.
Speaker 1: They didn't when they saw the big gorilla, though neither
Speaker 1: did I. We all had received our education from listening
Speaker 1: to programs like yours. We weren't aware that dog man
Speaker 1: don't always stay in the forest. They're often seen among neighborhoods,
Speaker 1: and perhaps, just perhaps the creature that my children saw
Speaker 1: all those years ago was just that, a dog man
Speaker 1: in a small New England town. Di in