Speaker 1: Now one of your pudding. I got a string going
Speaker 1: on here, something just cause 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, get
Speaker 1: the body out here when I'm out there. I thought
Speaker 1: of a bitch about tex forty nine. I don't know
Speaker 1: easy ann out there? Yeah, I'm walking right. Hey.
Speaker 2: You know that feeling when you're alone in the woods
Speaker 2: and suddenly everything goes quiet. That moment when every bird
Speaker 2: stops singing, every squirrel stops chattering, and even the wind
Speaker 2: seems to hold its breath. That's when you know you're
Speaker 2: not alone, not really. Tonight, I'm sharing six stories from
Speaker 2: people who experienced something in those silent moments, people who
Speaker 2: saw things they can't explain, heard sounds that shouldn't exist,
Speaker 2: and encountered something in the places where our world meets
Speaker 2: the wild. These come from regular folks. A wildlife biologist,
Speaker 2: a school bus driver, a teenager dealing with family troubles,
Speaker 2: a retired teacher, a lifelong hunter, and a solo camper.
Speaker 2: Each of them went into the wilderness expecting one thing
Speaker 2: and found something else entirely, something that changed how they
Speaker 2: see the world. What you're about to hear might challenge
Speaker 2: what you think you know about what's out there in
Speaker 2: the deep woods. These people didn't go looking for mystery.
Speaker 2: It found them, and once you've heard their stories, you
Speaker 2: might find yourself listening a little more carefully the next
Speaker 2: time you're out there away from the safety of city lights.
Speaker 2: So settle in, get comfortable, and remember, just because we've
Speaker 2: mapped the world doesn't mean we know everything that lives
Speaker 2: in it. Let's start with Ted, a wildlife biologist who
Speaker 2: thought he understood the forest better than most until the
Speaker 2: day he realized something in the forest understood him. I'm
Speaker 2: a wildlife biologist. I've been doing this for fifteen years.
Speaker 2: I know what elk looked like. I know what bears
Speaker 2: look like, I know what people look like when they're hiking.
Speaker 2: What I saw up on that ridge last October, I
Speaker 2: still don't have a good explanation for it. I was
Speaker 2: doing the annual elk survey up in the Cascades, same
Speaker 2: area I've been covering for six years running. You get
Speaker 2: to know a place pretty well when you spend that
Speaker 2: much time there. Every game trail, every clearing, every spot
Speaker 2: where the herds like to bed down. The ridge I'm
Speaker 2: talking about runs along the north side of the valley,
Speaker 2: maybe eight hundred feet up from where I usually set
Speaker 2: up my observation post. First time I noticed them was
Speaker 2: a Tuesday morning, real early sun was just hitting the
Speaker 2: tops of the trees. I had my spotting scope trained
Speaker 2: on a bachelor group of bulls when something moved up
Speaker 2: on the ridge line, just a flash of dark against
Speaker 2: the lighter sky. When I swung the scope up there,
Speaker 2: I saw what looked like three figures standing at the
Speaker 2: edge of the tree line, standing, not moving, just watching. Now,
Speaker 2: hunters aren't supposed to be up there. It's restricted land
Speaker 2: research area only, but people don't always follow the rules, right,
Speaker 2: So I made a note in my field journal possible
Speaker 2: trespassers on north Ridge and went back to counting elk.
Speaker 2: Next morning, same thing, three figures, same spot, same time.
Speaker 2: This time I got a better look. They were tall,
Speaker 2: really tall, and dark like they were wearing all black
Speaker 2: or dark brown. But here's the thing. They never moved
Speaker 2: like people move. You know how hikers shift their weight,
Speaker 2: adjust their packs, that kind of thing. These figures just
Speaker 2: stood there, perfectly still for the entire forty minutes I
Speaker 2: watched them. Then when I looked away to write something
Speaker 2: down and looked back, they were gone. Third day, I
Speaker 2: brought my good camera with the telephoto lens. Sure enough,
Speaker 2: right on schedule, there they were. I started snapping photos,
Speaker 2: but even zoomed all the way in, I couldn't make
Speaker 2: out details. The autofocus kept hunting like it couldn't lock
Speaker 2: onto them properly. The pictures came out blurry, just dark
Speaker 2: shapes against the trees. By the end of the week,
Speaker 2: I was getting frustrated and honestly a little unnerved. These
Speaker 2: things people whatever were there every single morning, always in
Speaker 2: the same spot, always watching down into the valley where
Speaker 2: I was working. I mentioned it to my supervisor over
Speaker 2: the radio, and he said, if I was really concerned
Speaker 2: about trespassers, I should go check it out. But here's
Speaker 2: the thing about that ridge. There's no easy way up.
Speaker 2: It's a brutal climb through thick undergrowth and fallen trees.
Speaker 2: Would take me half a day to get up there
Speaker 2: and back, and I had work to do. That's when
Speaker 2: I remembered i'd brought my drone. I'd been using it
Speaker 2: to survey areas I couldn't easily reach on foot. Good
Speaker 2: little unit, about two thousand dollars worth of equipment, HD camera,
Speaker 2: thirty minute battery life, GPS tracking. I figured i'd fly
Speaker 2: it up to the ridge, get some clear footage of
Speaker 2: whoever was up there, and that would be that. The
Speaker 2: next morning they were there again. I got the drone ready,
Speaker 2: did all my pre flight checks. Weather was perfect, no wind,
Speaker 2: clear skies. I sent it up, keeping an eye on
Speaker 2: the video feed on my phone. The drone climbed smooth
Speaker 2: and steady. I could see the valley dropping away below
Speaker 2: my truck, getting smaller and smaller. At about four hundred feet,
Speaker 2: still well below the ridge, the video feed started getting
Speaker 2: choppy static lines across the screen. I figured maybe I
Speaker 2: was pushing the range, so I stopped the ascent and
Speaker 2: just tried to hold position. That's when things got weird.
Speaker 2: The drone started drifting, not with the wind, there wasn't
Speaker 2: any wind. It was moving sideways toward the ridge, like
Speaker 2: something was pulling it. I tried to bring it back,
Speaker 2: but the controls weren't responding properly. The video feed was
Speaker 2: cutting in and out. In one of the clear moments,
Speaker 2: I swear I saw something moving fast through the frame,
Speaker 2: large and dark than nothing, complete signal loss. The controller
Speaker 2: showed an error message aircraft disconnected. I never saw that
Speaker 2: drone again. I spent three hours hiking around the base
Speaker 2: of the ridge, hoping it had crashed somewhere I could
Speaker 2: retrieve it. Nothing gone. Two thousand dollars of equipment just vanished.
Speaker 2: That afternoon, I was pissed, I mean really angry. I
Speaker 2: decided to check my trail cameras, thinking maybe they'd caught something.
Speaker 2: Maybe whoever was up on that ridge had come down
Speaker 2: into the valley at some point. I had twelve cameras
Speaker 2: set up throughout my study area, all in metal security boxes,
Speaker 2: all locked with heavy duty padlocks. Every single one was gone,
Speaker 2: not broken, not vandalized gone. The trees where they'd been
Speaker 2: strapped showed marks like someone had used bolt cutters on
Speaker 2: the security cables. But here's what really got me. Some
Speaker 2: of those cameras were fifteen feet up in the trees.
Speaker 2: I used climbing sticks to install them that high, specifically
Speaker 2: so bears and people can't mess with them. Whoever took
Speaker 2: them didn't leave any ladder marks on the trees, no
Speaker 2: rope marks, nothing. I radioed my supervisor immediately. This was
Speaker 2: way beyond un trespassing, now, this was theft of government property.
Speaker 2: He told me to pack up and come back to
Speaker 2: the station, said we'd send a team up there in
Speaker 2: a few days to investigate. I started packing my gear,
Speaker 2: trying to shake this feeling that I was being watched.
Speaker 2: The sun was getting low, maybe an hour of daylight left.
Speaker 2: As I was loading my truck, I heard this sound
Speaker 2: from up on the ridge. Not a call exactly, more
Speaker 2: like have you ever heard a tree fall in the forest,
Speaker 2: that deep groaning crack. It was like that, but rhythmic,
Speaker 2: three long groans, then silence. I looked up with my binoculars.
Speaker 2: The three figures were there, but now they were moving,
Speaker 2: walking along the ridge. Line, staying just inside the tree line.
Speaker 2: They moved so smoothly, like they were gliding. No up
Speaker 2: and down motion you get with a normal walk, just
Speaker 2: this fluid movement. They covered what must have been a
Speaker 2: quarter mile in less than a minute, then disappeared into
Speaker 2: the thicker forest. I got in my truck and left.
Speaker 2: Didn't even finish packing my gear properly, just threw it
Speaker 2: in the back and drove the whole way down the mountain.
Speaker 2: I kept checking my mirrors, half expecting to see something
Speaker 2: following me. The team that went up there the next
Speaker 2: week didn't find much. Some broken branches up on the ridge,
Speaker 2: a few partial prints that were too degraded to cast.
Speaker 2: They said it was probably just hunters messing with me,
Speaker 2: maybe some anti government types who don't like researchers on
Speaker 2: public land. But hunters don't move like that, Hunters don't
Speaker 2: take secured trail cameras from fifteen feet up without leaving
Speaker 2: a trace, and hunters sure as hell don't make a
Speaker 2: drone just disappear out of the sky. I put in
Speaker 2: for a transfer to a different study area after that.
Speaker 2: My supervisor approved it without asking too many questions. I
Speaker 2: think he could see something had shaken me up pretty bad.
Speaker 2: I still do Elk surveys, just in a different part
Speaker 2: of the state now, nice open meadows, good sight lines,
Speaker 2: no high ridges overlooking my work. Sometimes other biologists ask
Speaker 2: me about that area in the Cascades, whether I have
Speaker 2: any tips for working up there. I tell them to
Speaker 2: stay out of the valley below the north Ridge. When
Speaker 2: they ask why, I just say the terrain is difficult
Speaker 2: and leave it at that. Most of them take the hint,
Speaker 2: but every now and then someone will come back from
Speaker 2: that area with a strange look on their face. They'll
Speaker 2: pull me aside and ask if I ever noticed anything
Speaker 2: unusual up there. I tell them, no, I never saw
Speaker 2: anything unusual, just shadows on a ridge, probably nothing. It's
Speaker 2: easier than trying to explain what those shadows actually did.
Speaker 2: Ted never returned to that valley. He continues his research
Speaker 2: in a different part of the state, where the ridges
Speaker 2: are lower and the sight lines are clear. But sometimes
Speaker 2: when he's analyzing data late at night, he thinks about
Speaker 2: that drone footage that never came back. What did it
Speaker 2: capture in those final moments before the signal cut out?
Speaker 2: What did those figures on the ridge not want him
Speaker 2: to see. Our next story takes us to the Pacific Northwest,
Speaker 2: where morning fog is as common as rain. Sarah drove
Speaker 2: the same school bus route for twenty three years, knew
Speaker 2: every turn, every stop, every kid, But in her final
Speaker 2: months behind the wheel, the fog started carrying something more
Speaker 2: than just moisture, something that would make her quit the
Speaker 2: only job she'd ever loved twenty three years. I drove
Speaker 2: that route twenty three years, same kids, same families, same houses.
Speaker 2: You get to know every pothole, every turn, every dog
Speaker 2: that likes to bark at the bus. Route forty seven
Speaker 2: out past Salmon Creek, through those thick woods before you
Speaker 2: hit the Turner Farm. I retired two years ago, but
Speaker 2: I still think about those last few months. Still wake
Speaker 2: up sometimes thinking I hear those whispers. It started in
Speaker 2: early November. We get these thick fogs out here in
Speaker 2: the Pacific Northwest, especially in the valleys. Visibility drops to
Speaker 2: maybe fifteen feet. You crawl along at ten miles an hour,
Speaker 2: hoping nobody stupid enough to pass you. That morning, the
Speaker 2: fog was the worst I'd seen in years. Couldn't even
Speaker 2: see the yellow line. I was running late because of
Speaker 2: the weather had already picked up the Martinez kids and
Speaker 2: the Johnson's. We were heading into that stretch of woods
Speaker 2: before the Turner Farm when I heard it. Voices, but
Speaker 2: not really voices, more like you know when you're almost
Speaker 2: asleep and you think you hear someone calling your name
Speaker 2: like that, but outside the bus. I stopped, thinking maybe
Speaker 2: some kid was out there lost in the fog, opened
Speaker 2: the door, called out nothing. The Martinez boy Diego. He
Speaker 2: was sitting right behind me. Kid was always chatty, but
Speaker 2: that morning he was dead quiet. I asked him if
Speaker 2: he heard anything. He just shook his head, but his
Speaker 2: eyes were huge. Started driving again. The whispers came back,
Speaker 2: seemed like they were moving alongside the bus. Not words
Speaker 2: I could make out, just this constant murmuring, like several
Speaker 2: people having a conversation just out of earshot. The kids
Speaker 2: were all silent. That never happens usually I'm telling them
Speaker 2: to keep it down every five minutes. This went on
Speaker 2: for three mornings, always in the same spot, always in
Speaker 2: thick fog. The fourth morning, I was ready for it,
Speaker 2: had my phone recording windows cracked so it could pick
Speaker 2: up outside sounds. But when I played it back later,
Speaker 2: all you could hear was the engine in this weird static.
Speaker 2: Then came the morning we hit something. I was going
Speaker 2: maybe fifteen miles an hour, super careful, like always in
Speaker 2: the fog. We were right at that same spot when
Speaker 2: there was this thud, not hard but solid, like hitting
Speaker 2: a hay bale or something. The whole bus shuddered. I
Speaker 2: slammed the brakes, heart pounding. My first thought was a deer,
Speaker 2: but it hadn't felt like a deer, too soft, but
Speaker 2: also too big. I put on my hazards, grabbed my flashlight,
Speaker 2: told the kids to stay put. When I got out,
Speaker 2: the fog was so thick I could barely see the
Speaker 2: front of the bus. No damage to the bumper, no blood,
Speaker 2: no fur, nothing. I walked back along the road checking
Speaker 2: for whatever we'd hit. Nothing, not even skid marks from
Speaker 2: my brakes. The road was too wet from the fog.
Speaker 2: When I got back on the bus, every single kid
Speaker 2: was staring out the windows. On the right side. Emily,
Speaker 2: sweet little first grader. She looked at me and said,
Speaker 2: the tall man went into the trees. I asked her
Speaker 2: what tall man. She just pointed into the fog and
Speaker 2: went quiet. That afternoon, kids started bringing me pictures. You
Speaker 2: know how kids draw stick figures, crayon houses, that kind
Speaker 2: of thing. But these pictures, they all showed the same thing.
Speaker 2: A tall, dark figure standing in gray scribbles that I
Speaker 2: guess was supposed to be fog, way taller than the
Speaker 2: trees they'd drawn. Some kids gave it red eyes, some
Speaker 2: didn't give it a face at all, but it was
Speaker 2: always the same proportions, impossibly tall, long arms standing just
Speaker 2: at the edge of visibility. And stay tuned for more
Speaker 2: sasquatch ott to see. We'll be right back. After these messages,
Speaker 2: I took the pictures to the principal, doctor Jones. She
Speaker 2: looked through them, got this concerned look. Asked if maybe
Speaker 2: the kids had watched something scary on TV, or if
Speaker 2: someone had been telling ghost stories on the bus. I
Speaker 2: told her no, but I didn't mention the whispers or
Speaker 2: what we'd hit. Didn't want to sound crazy. The next
Speaker 2: few days were clear, no fog, The kids went back
Speaker 2: to being loud and normal. I started to relax, figured
Speaker 2: maybe it had just been a weird week. Then the
Speaker 2: following Monday, another thick fog rolled in. This time I
Speaker 2: was determined to take a different route, told dispatch I
Speaker 2: was detouring around some flooding that didn't exist. I had
Speaker 2: twenty minutes to the morning run, but I didn't care.
Speaker 2: The kids complained, especially the older ones who were worried
Speaker 2: about being late, but I noticed Diego and Emily and
Speaker 2: some of the others who drawn those pictures they looked relieved.
Speaker 2: Took the long way for three days, no whispers, no
Speaker 2: weird feelings, nothing. Started to feel silly about the whole thing.
Speaker 2: Then Thursday morning, Despatch called me out, said a parent
Speaker 2: had complained about the extended root time told me there
Speaker 2: was no flooding reported and I needed to stick to
Speaker 2: my assigned route. Friday morning, thick fog again, had no
Speaker 2: choice but to take the regular road. As soon as
Speaker 2: we entered that stretch of woods, the bus went quiet,
Speaker 2: like the kids knew. The whispers started up right away,
Speaker 2: but this time they were louder, and I swear some
Speaker 2: of them were saying names, not clearly, but like when
Speaker 2: someone calls you from another room and you can't quite
Speaker 2: make it out, but you know they're calling you. Almost
Speaker 2: through the woods, when the engine died, just cut out completely,
Speaker 2: no warning, no sputtering, just silence. In twenty three years
Speaker 2: of driving, I'd never had that bus die on me.
Speaker 2: I tried the ignition nothing radio was dead too. Even
Speaker 2: my cell phone was showing no signal, which was weird
Speaker 2: because we usually had at least two bars there. The
Speaker 2: whispers got louder. The kids started crying, not all of them,
Speaker 2: but the young ones. Diego was gripping the seat in
Speaker 2: front of him so hard his knuckles were white. That's
Speaker 2: when we all saw it. A shape in the fog
Speaker 2: off to the right side of the bus, tall, so
Speaker 2: tall that even sitting in the bus, we were looking
Speaker 2: up at where its head should be. It wasn't moving,
Speaker 2: just standing there. The fog was swirling around it in
Speaker 2: this unnatural way, like it was giving off heat or something.
Speaker 2: Nobody screamed. It was like we were all frozen. The
Speaker 2: thing took a step toward the bus, just one step,
Speaker 2: but it covered so much ground it was maybe ten
Speaker 2: feet away. Now I could see texture through the fog,
Speaker 2: not fur exactly, but not smooth either, like rough bark
Speaker 2: or thick hair matted with mud. Then the engine turned
Speaker 2: over by itself. I hadn't touched the key. The radio
Speaker 2: burst back on static at full volume. The kids all jumped.
Speaker 2: When I looked back to the window the thing was gone,
Speaker 2: just fog. I drove out of there so fast I
Speaker 2: probably should have gotten fired. Didn't stop at the Turner farm,
Speaker 2: didn't stop at any of the regular stops, went straight
Speaker 2: to the school and told the kids to call their
Speaker 2: parents for rides home. That afternoon, I went to doctor
Speaker 2: Jones' office and quit on the spot. She tried to
Speaker 2: talk me out of it, asked what had happened. I
Speaker 2: just told her I was done. That twenty three years
Speaker 2: was enough. She could see I was shaken up. Didn't
Speaker 2: push too hard. The district found a replacement driver pretty quick,
Speaker 2: young guy, military veteran, very professional. I heard he lasted
Speaker 2: three weeks quit after reporting mechanical issues on that same
Speaker 2: stretch of road. The driver after him made it two
Speaker 2: months before requesting a different route. Last I heard, they
Speaker 2: changed the route entirely, added another bus to split up
Speaker 2: the stops so nobody had to go through those woods.
Speaker 2: Official reason was optimization of resources or something like that.
Speaker 2: Sometimes I run into those kids around town, well they're
Speaker 2: teenagers now. Diego's in high school. When he sees me,
Speaker 2: he always nods this serious adult nod, like we share something,
Speaker 2: which I guess we do. Emily still draws, her, mom
Speaker 2: told me, but she doesn't draw tall figures anymore. Doesn't
Speaker 2: draw fog either. I still dream about it sometimes, that
Speaker 2: shape in the fog, how it moved, How the whispers
Speaker 2: sounded almost like language, but not quite. I've lived here
Speaker 2: my whole life, and I know these woods have stories.
Speaker 2: Native folks have worries about things in the forest that
Speaker 2: go way back. I never used to believe them. I
Speaker 2: believe them now. Sarah's story reminds us that these encounters
Speaker 2: don't just happen to people alone in remote wilderness. Sometimes
Speaker 2: they occur right along our daily routines, in places we
Speaker 2: think we know. The kids on that bus drew what
Speaker 2: they saw, processing their experience the only way they knew how.
Speaker 2: But what about a young person facing their own struggles.
Speaker 2: How do they process something impossible when their world is
Speaker 2: already falling apart. Our next account comes from someone who
Speaker 2: is just fifteen when it happened. They've asked to remain anonymous,
Speaker 2: but their story about finding an unexpected connection during the
Speaker 2: worst summer of their life might be the most unusual
Speaker 2: one you'll hear tonight. I was fifteen when this happened.
Speaker 2: Mom and dad were going through their divorce that year,
Speaker 2: and it was ugly. Every night, was screaming matches about money,
Speaker 2: about custody, about who cheated first. I'd put on my headphones.
Speaker 2: You could still feel it through the walls, you know,
Speaker 2: that tension that makes your stomach hurt. Our house backed
Speaker 2: up to woods, not like a little patch of trees,
Speaker 2: but real woods that went on for miles. My bedroom
Speaker 2: window looked right out into them. I'd spent years playing
Speaker 2: in those woods, building forts, catching frogs in the creek.
Speaker 2: But that summer I started noticing something different. It was
Speaker 2: late July when I first saw it. I was lying
Speaker 2: in bed around midnight, parents going at it downstairs, when
Speaker 2: movement outside caught my eye. There was this shape at
Speaker 2: the edge of our backyard where the grass meets the
Speaker 2: tree line, huge, like impossibly huge, just standing there watching
Speaker 2: the house. At first I thought it was a bear.
Speaker 2: We got black bears sometimes raiding garbage cans, but bears
Speaker 2: don't stand that long on two legs, and bears don't
Speaker 2: just watch. This thing stood there for an hour, perfectly still,
Speaker 2: before melting back into the woods so smoothly I almost
Speaker 2: thought I'd imagined it. Next night, same thing, and the next,
Speaker 2: always around midnight, always in the same spot. After a week,
Speaker 2: I started leaving my window open, trying to hear if
Speaker 2: it made any noise. Nothing, silent as fog. Here's the
Speaker 2: weird part. I wasn't scared. I should have been terrified, right,
Speaker 2: But there was something about the way it just stood there,
Speaker 2: patient and still while chaos was exploding in my house.
Speaker 2: It felt like it understood somehow, like it knew what
Speaker 2: it was like to not belong. Two weeks in I
Speaker 2: did something stupid. Mom had made this big dinner, trying
Speaker 2: to pretend everything was normal, but Dad didn't show up again,
Speaker 2: so there was all this extra food, roast chicken, mashed potatoes,
Speaker 2: the works. Mom locked herself in her room crying, and
Speaker 2: I couldn't stand being in that house. So I grabbed
Speaker 2: a plate of food and walked out to the backyard.
Speaker 2: It was there, of course, watching from the tree line.
Speaker 2: I set the plate down at the edge of our property,
Speaker 2: maybe thirty feet from where it stood. Then I backed
Speaker 2: up to the porch and waited. It didn't move for
Speaker 2: the longest time, then so slowly I almost missed it.
Speaker 2: It came forward, not walking exactly, more like flowing, smooth,
Speaker 2: and silent. When it reached the plate, it crouched down,
Speaker 2: and even crouched it was taller than me. I couldn't
Speaker 2: see details in the dark, just the bulk of it.
Speaker 2: The plate disappeared somewhere in that mass of darkness, and
Speaker 2: then it flowed back to the trees. The next morning,
Speaker 2: the plate was back on our porch, clean, not washed clean,
Speaker 2: but licked clean, every tiny scrap of food gone. So
Speaker 2: I started feeding it. Every night. I'd sneak out whatever
Speaker 2: I could leftover, sandwiches, fruit, anything. Sometimes I'd buy extra
Speaker 2: food with my allowance and hide it in my room.
Speaker 2: The thing would wait at the tree line until I
Speaker 2: left the food and backed away. Then it would come forward,
Speaker 2: take it, and fade back into the darkness. After two
Speaker 2: weeks of this, it started coming closer, not to me,
Speaker 2: but to the house. It would take the food, then,
Speaker 2: instead of leaving immediately, it would stand there watching my window,
Speaker 2: and I'd watch back. Two creatures in the dark, neither
Speaker 2: one belonging where they were. Mom and Dad's fights were
Speaker 2: getting worse. Lawyers were involved.
Speaker 1: Now.
Speaker 2: Dad had moved into a motel, but kept coming back
Speaker 2: to get things, and every visit turned into a screaming match.
Speaker 2: One night, they were in the driveway, really going at
Speaker 2: it when I saw the thing move closer than ever before.
Speaker 2: It stood just inside the tree line, maybe fifteen feet
Speaker 2: from them, invisible in the darkness. They never noticed two
Speaker 2: wrapped up in their anger, but I saw it, and
Speaker 2: I swear it was agitated, swaying slightly, like it was
Speaker 2: upset by the yelling. That's when I started talking to it,
Speaker 2: expecting answers, just talking. I'd sit on the porch while
Speaker 2: it ate, telling it about school, about the divorce, about
Speaker 2: how I couldn't wait to be old enough to leave.
Speaker 2: It never responded, obviously, but sometimes it would tilt its
Speaker 2: head like it was listening. The night everything changed was
Speaker 2: in late August. Mom and Dad had their worst fight yet.
Speaker 2: Dad shoved Mom, she threw a glass at him. Neighbors
Speaker 2: called the cops. It was after one in the morning
Speaker 2: when things finally calmed down. Dad was gone, Mom was
Speaker 2: passed out on the couch, and I was exhausted but
Speaker 2: too wired to sleep. I went out with food, like always,
Speaker 2: but the thing wasn't at the tree line. I waited, confused.
Speaker 2: Then I heard it a soft tap on glass my
Speaker 2: bedroom window. I nearly had a heart attack. I crept
Speaker 2: back inside, up to my room. There it was, face
Speaker 2: pressed against my second story window. I say face, but
Speaker 2: it wasn't really a face, more like a suggestion of features.
Speaker 2: Dark eyes that reflected light like an animal's, no clear
Speaker 2: nose or mouth, just shadows where they should be. The
Speaker 2: glass fogged around where it breathed. It tapped again, so
Speaker 2: gentle for something so large. I don't know what possessed me,
Speaker 2: but I opened the window. The smell hit me first,
Speaker 2: not bad, but wild, like wet earth and pine needles
Speaker 2: and something musky. It didn't try to come in, just
Speaker 2: stayed there, filling my entire window frame. Then it made
Speaker 2: a sound, the first sound I'd ever heard from it,
Speaker 2: this low thrumbing vibration, almost below hearing, like a cat purring,
Speaker 2: but deeper, comforting. Somehow I reached out, god knows why,
Speaker 2: and touched it. The hair or fur or whatever. It
Speaker 2: was felt coarse but warm. The thrumbing got stronger. We
Speaker 2: stayed like that for maybe a minute, me with my
Speaker 2: hand on this impossible thing, both of us just existing
Speaker 2: in the quiet. Then it left, climbed down or jumped down,
Speaker 2: I don't know, Silent as always, but it left something
Speaker 2: on my windowsill, a river rock, smooth and round, still
Speaker 2: wet from the creek. After that night, it stopped coming
Speaker 2: for food. I'd wait at the usual time, but nothing.
Speaker 2: I left plates out that went untouched. After a week,
Speaker 2: I was convinced I'd scared it off somehow, or maybe
Speaker 2: it had gotten what it needed and moved on. But
Speaker 2: then about two weeks later, I was walking home from
Speaker 2: school through the woods. There was a short cut I
Speaker 2: sometimes took. I was on the trail when I heard
Speaker 2: branches breaking off to my left, heavy footsteps keeping pace
Speaker 2: with me, but staying hidden. I knew it was the thing, somehow,
Speaker 2: I just knew. I stopped and said, hey, it's okay,
Speaker 2: I know you're there. The footsteps stopped too, for a
Speaker 2: long moment, nothing, then that thrumbing sound, just for a
Speaker 2: second and acknowledgment. Then the footsteps moved away, fading into
Speaker 2: the deeper woods. I saw it maybe three more times
Speaker 2: that fall, always at a distance, always watching. When winter came,
Speaker 2: the sighting stopped. Mom and I moved to an apartment
Speaker 2: in town after the divorce was finalized, never saw it again.
Speaker 2: I'm thirty two now, and I still think about that summer.
Speaker 2: I've read all the Bigfoot stuff online, watched the documentaries,
Speaker 2: but none of it captures what I experienced. The intelligence
Speaker 2: of it, the loneliness, the way it seemed drawn to
Speaker 2: human pain, like it recognized something familiar. Sometimes I dream
Speaker 2: about it in the dreams. It's still out there in
Speaker 2: those woods, watching houses from the tree line, looking for
Speaker 2: another broken kid who needs to know they're not alone
Speaker 2: in the dark. And sometimes when I'm going through my
Speaker 2: own rough patches, I find myself wishing I could leave
Speaker 2: out a plate of food and have something understand without
Speaker 2: words that life is hard and strange and full of
Speaker 2: things that don't quite fit. I know how crazy this
Speaker 2: all sounds, but I also know what I experienced. That
Speaker 2: thing was real, and for one month, when everything else
Speaker 2: in my life was falling apart, it was there, watching, waiting,
Speaker 2: being whatever it was I needed it to be. I
Speaker 2: still have that river rock, keep it on my desk.
Speaker 2: Sometimes when I hold it, I swear I can still
Speaker 2: smell pine needles and wet earth. That story always gets
Speaker 2: to me, the loneliness on both sides of that encounter,
Speaker 2: a troubled kid and something else finding comfort in each
Speaker 2: other's presence. But not all encounters are so benign. Sometimes
Speaker 2: what's out there doesn't want connection. Sometimes it just wants
Speaker 2: us gone. Martha was a retired high school teacher who
Speaker 2: thought she'd found her perfect piece of paradise in West Virginia,
Speaker 2: forty acres of mountain solitude for her golden years. But
Speaker 2: something else had already claimed that land, and it wasn't
Speaker 2: interested in sharing. And stay tuned for more sasquatch ot
Speaker 2: to see. We'll be right back after these messages. I
Speaker 2: bought that property in West Virginia, sight unseen, forty acres
Speaker 2: of mountain land for thirty thousand dollars. The realtor said
Speaker 2: it was priced low because of the access road four
Speaker 2: miles of rough dirt track that would need work. I
Speaker 2: didn't care. I was sixty three years old, newly retired
Speaker 2: from forty years of teaching high school, and I wanted quiet.
Speaker 2: Lord knows I got more than I bargained for. The
Speaker 2: first week was paradise. Little two bedroom cabin needed work,
Speaker 2: but had good bones, solar panels already installed by the
Speaker 2: previous owner. The water from the well tested clean. I'd
Speaker 2: sit on the porch with my coffee and watch the
Speaker 2: sun come up over the ridge, thinking I'd finally found
Speaker 2: my place. The knocking started on day eight, middle of
Speaker 2: the night, three loud knocks on the east wall of
Speaker 2: the cabin, not the door, the wall itself. Bang bang, bang,
Speaker 2: hard enough to shake the pictures i'd hung. I grabbed
Speaker 2: my flashlight, went outside, circled the whole cabin. Nothing, no footprints,
Speaker 2: no marks on the wall. Nothing. Next night, same thing,
Speaker 2: this time on the north wall. Three knocks, evenly spaced.
Speaker 2: I was ready with my shotgun this time, burst out
Speaker 2: the door, ready to confront whoever was messing with me.
Speaker 2: The motion light i'd installed lit up the whole area empty,
Speaker 2: but the woods were dead silent. You know that's not natural.
Speaker 2: Should always be some noise, crickets, owls, something, But it
Speaker 2: was like everything was holding its breath. Third night, I
Speaker 2: stayed inside. The knocks came from the roof. I could
Speaker 2: hear whatever it was walking up there. Heavy footsteps that
Speaker 2: made the rafters creak. Then three massive strikes that scent
Speaker 2: dust drifting down from the ceiling. I called the Sheriff's
Speaker 2: department on my satellite phone. They said they'd send someone
Speaker 2: in the morning. The access road was too rough for
Speaker 2: night driving. Deputy showed up around noon, looked around, took
Speaker 2: some notes, suggested maybe it was a bear or mountain cats.
Speaker 2: I taught biology for twenty years before switching to general science.
Speaker 2: I know what wildlife sounds like. This wasn't wildlife, but
Speaker 2: I could see in his eyes he thought I was
Speaker 2: just some city woman spooked by country noises. After he left,
Speaker 2: I found the first gift. That's what I called them,
Speaker 2: though gift isn't really right. A pyramid of stones, perfectly balanced,
Speaker 2: right in the middle of my garden, not there that
Speaker 2: morning when I'd watered the tomatoes. Each stone was bigger
Speaker 2: than my head, and they were stacked five high. Would
Speaker 2: have taken equipment to move them, or something very very strong.
Speaker 2: That night, no knocks, but the screaming started from the woods,
Speaker 2: maybe two hundred yards out. Not human screaming, but not
Speaker 2: any animal I knew either, long ascending whales that went
Speaker 2: on for minutes at a time. My nearest neighbor was
Speaker 2: six miles away, but I called him anyway. Chuck lived
Speaker 2: there all his life. When I described the sounds, he
Speaker 2: got quiet. Then he said, Martha, you might want to
Speaker 2: consider staying in town for a few days. I asked
Speaker 2: him what he meant. He hemmed and hawed, then finally said,
Speaker 2: that land you bought. There's a reason it was so cheap.
Speaker 2: Things up there don't like company, things plural. I'm stubborn,
Speaker 2: always have been told myself. I wasn't going to be
Speaker 2: run off by some local nonsense, probably just people trying
Speaker 2: to scare me into selling. But that night changed my mind.
Speaker 2: Started with rocks hitting the roof, not thrown, dropped from height.
Speaker 2: I could hear them rolling off and hitting the ground.
Speaker 2: Then the walls, stones the size of base falls, hammering
Speaker 2: the cabin from all sides. The windows didn't break miraculously,
Speaker 2: but they rattled in their frames. This went on for
Speaker 2: an hour. When it stopped, I heard breathing, heavy rhythmic
Speaker 2: breathing right outside my bedroom window. The curtains were drawn,
Speaker 2: but I could see the shadow of something massive blocking
Speaker 2: the moonlight. It stood there, breathing for maybe five minutes.
Speaker 2: Then it spoke, not words exactly, but vocalizations that had
Speaker 2: the cadence of speech, like it was trying to talk
Speaker 2: but didn't have the right equipment for it. Guttural, deep,
Speaker 2: but with inflection, almost poleting. I grabbed my phone to
Speaker 2: record it, but the screen wouldn't turn on, not dead.
Speaker 2: It would flash for a second then go dark. My
Speaker 2: flashlight did the same thing. Even the led clock on
Speaker 2: my nightstand was flickering. The breathing thing outside made more
Speaker 2: of those speech like sounds, then moved away. As soon
Speaker 2: as it was gone, all my electronics came back to normal.
Speaker 2: I didn't sleep the rest of the night. Next morning
Speaker 2: I found tracks all around the cabin and the soft
Speaker 2: dirt I've been preparing for a flower bed. Not quite human,
Speaker 2: not quite animal. Five toes, but two spread out and huge,
Speaker 2: maybe eighteen inches long. The stride length suggested something over
Speaker 2: eight feet tall. I took pictures sent them to a
Speaker 2: friend who worked at the university. He said they looked
Speaker 2: like the fake bigfoot prints people make for hoaxes, But
Speaker 2: these weren't fake. The depth, the way the dirt was compressed,
Speaker 2: the dermal ridge is visible in some of them. These
Speaker 2: were real prints from something heavy and alive. That day,
Speaker 2: I drove to town and bought trail cameras, six of them,
Speaker 2: best ones. They had set them up all around the
Speaker 2: property that afternoon. If something was going to harass me,
Speaker 2: I was going to get proof. The cameras lasted exactly
Speaker 2: one night. I found them the next morning in a
Speaker 2: neat lie line on my porch, all six removed from
Speaker 2: their mounting straps without breaking anything, arranged from smallest to largest.
Speaker 2: The memory cards were missing. Message received. The harassment escalated
Speaker 2: wood knocks from multiple directions, sometimes seeming to communicate with
Speaker 2: each other. Calls and screams at all hours. More rock throwing,
Speaker 2: more stone pyramids appearing in impossible places, balanced on my
Speaker 2: truck hood, blocking the access road, once even inside my
Speaker 2: locked shed. Two weeks into this, I was exhausted, hadn't
Speaker 2: slept more than an hour or two at a time.
Speaker 2: I was making coffee one morning when I saw them,
Speaker 2: three figures at the edge of the clearing, tall covered
Speaker 2: in dark hair, built like linebackers, but the proportions were off.
Speaker 2: They just stood there, watching the cabin. I walked out
Speaker 2: onto the porch. We stared at each other for maybe
Speaker 2: thirty seconds. Then the middle one, the tallest, raised its
Speaker 2: arm and pointed, not at me, pass me down the
Speaker 2: access road. The message was clear. Leave. I went inside,
Speaker 2: packed what I could fit in my truck and left.
Speaker 2: Spent a week in a motel trying to figure out
Speaker 2: what to do. Called a real estate lawyer. Explained I
Speaker 2: needed to sell the property immediately. He found a buyer.
Speaker 2: Within a month, some hunting club from out of state
Speaker 2: sold it for twenty thousand, ten thousand less than I paid.
Speaker 2: Didn't care. The closing was weird. The buyer's representative asked
Speaker 2: strange questions. Had I noticed any unusual wildlife, any areas
Speaker 2: that seemed active? I said no, just wanted to be
Speaker 2: done with it. I found out later that hunting club
Speaker 2: only owned the land for three months before selling it
Speaker 2: to a conservation group. The conservation group then sold it
Speaker 2: to the state. It's now part of a wildlife management
Speaker 2: area that's closed to the public. No camping, no hunting,
Speaker 2: no hiking. Closed. I'm in Arizona now, little condo in
Speaker 2: a retirement community, swimming pool, book club, bingo on Wednesdays.
Speaker 2: Everything I thought I didn't want. But I sleep through
Speaker 2: the night. No knocks, no screams, no shadows at the windows.
Speaker 2: Sometimes I google that area in West Virginia. There are
Speaker 2: forums discussions about the high number of missing hikers in
Speaker 2: that region, about sounds people here, about things people see
Speaker 2: but can't quite describe. I never contribute to these discussions.
Speaker 2: What would be the point? But I know what's up there,
Speaker 2: and I know it doesn't want us around. Forty acres
Speaker 2: in a cabin seemed like such a good deal. But
Speaker 2: some land isn't meant to be owned. Some places belong
Speaker 2: to older things that were there first and will be
Speaker 2: there long after we're gone. They ran me off, plain
Speaker 2: and simple, and looking back, I think they showed remarkable restraint.
Speaker 2: They could have done worse, much worse. They just wanted
Speaker 2: me gone. They made that abundantly clear. I was the trespasser.
Speaker 2: Took me losing ten thousand dollars in my dream retirement
Speaker 2: to understand that, But I understand it now. Some lessons
Speaker 2: are more expensive than others. But at least I left alive.
Speaker 2: Martha learned something fundamental about boundaries, that some of them
Speaker 2: aren't marked on any map. But what about those who've
Speaker 2: spent their whole lives in these forests, those who think
Speaker 2: they know every tree, every trail, every sound. Sometimes the
Speaker 2: most unsettling encounters happened to people who thought they understood
Speaker 2: the wilderness completely. Tom comes from five generations of hunters
Speaker 2: in eastern Tennessee. His family has walked those mountains for
Speaker 2: over a century, but three years ago he met someone
Speaker 2: who knew those woods in ways that defied explanation, and
Speaker 2: learned that some valleys are off limits for reasons older
Speaker 2: than memory. I've been hunting since I was eight years old.
Speaker 2: My dad taught me, his dad taught him, and so
Speaker 2: on back five generations. I know these mountains in eastern
Speaker 2: Tennessee like most people know their neighborhood. Every holler, every ridge,
Speaker 2: every game trail. So when I met someone up there
Speaker 2: who knew them better, it stuck with me. This was
Speaker 2: three years ago, early November. I was bow hunting, setting
Speaker 2: up in a valley i'd hunted for twenty years, good
Speaker 2: spot where two ridges funneled the deer down to a
Speaker 2: creek crossing. I'd been there since before dawn, hadn't seen
Speaker 2: anything worth taking a shot. At around noon, I was
Speaker 2: thinking about moving to a different stand when this guy
Speaker 2: walks right up the trail. No hunter, orange, no pack,
Speaker 2: no weapon. I could see, just walking through the woods
Speaker 2: in old jeans and a flannel shirt, like he was
Speaker 2: taking a stroll through a park, moving quiet though I
Speaker 2: barely heard him coming, and I've got good ears. He
Speaker 2: stopped about twenty yards from my tree stand, looked right
Speaker 2: up at me. Older guy, maybe sixty, gray beard, weathered face,
Speaker 2: Native American features, but I couldn't place the specific heritage.
Speaker 2: After noon, he said, voice quiet but carrying clear. I
Speaker 2: nodded back, a little irritated. You don't walk up on
Speaker 2: someone's hunt like that. But something about him made me
Speaker 2: hold my tongue. You're wasting your time here, he said,
Speaker 2: Deer haven't used this crossing for three days now. I'd
Speaker 2: seen fresh tracks that morning, clear prints in the mud,
Speaker 2: but when I look down to point them out, they
Speaker 2: seemed different, somehow older than i'd thought. Storm coming in
Speaker 2: change their pattern, he continued. They're using the northern Pass now,
Speaker 2: about a mile that way. He pointed up the ridge.
Speaker 2: There was no storm in the forecast. I'd checked that morning,
Speaker 2: clear skies for a week, But the way he said it,
Speaker 2: so matter of fact, made me look at the sky
Speaker 2: still blue. But there was something in the air, a feeling.
Speaker 2: You hunt this area, I asked. Climbing down from my stand,
Speaker 2: he made this sound, not quite a laugh. I don't.
Speaker 2: I just walk and watch watch what He studied me
Speaker 2: for a long moment. You've been coming here twenty years right, ever,
Speaker 2: wonder why you never see anyone else hunting this valley?
Speaker 2: I had, Actually it was odd, perfect habitat, easy access
Speaker 2: from the logging road, but I'd never encountered another hunter here.
Speaker 2: Just figured I was lucky. The others protect it, he said,
Speaker 2: this valley and three others nearby. They don't like the
Speaker 2: killing here.
Speaker 1: Others.
Speaker 2: The way he said it made my skin prickle. Bear cougars,
Speaker 2: I asked, though I knew that wasn't what he meant.
Speaker 2: He smiled. Slightly older than bears, smarter than cougars. They
Speaker 2: were here before the Cherokee, before the people, before the Cherokee.
Speaker 2: They'll be here after we're all gone. I wanted to
Speaker 2: laugh it off, but something in his eyes stopped me.
Speaker 2: He wasn't trying to scare me or impress me. He
Speaker 2: was just stating facts. You've seen them, he continued. It
Speaker 2: wasn't a question. Glimpses movement that wasn't quite right, felt
Speaker 2: them watching when you were field dressing a kill. He
Speaker 2: was right. There had been times, moments when the woods
Speaker 2: felt too quiet, when I'd had the overwhelming urge to
Speaker 2: leave a kill and get out fast. Times I'd felt
Speaker 2: eyes on me, but could never spot the watcher. They
Speaker 2: tolerate some hunting, he said, those who respect the land
Speaker 2: take only what they need. But this valley and the others,
Speaker 2: these are sanctuary, safe places where nothing hunts and nothing
Speaker 2: is hunted. You're telling me to leave. I'm telling you
Speaker 2: what is. What you do with that information is your choice.
Speaker 2: He turned to go, then stopped. But if you're smart,
Speaker 2: you'll pack up now. Storm will be here in three hours,
Speaker 2: and after the storm they'll be checking their territories. You
Speaker 2: don't want to be here for that. I watched him
Speaker 2: walk away, moving through the un to growth without disturbing
Speaker 2: a branch. When I looked at the sky again, clouds
Speaker 2: were forming on the western horizon, dark ones. I should
Speaker 2: have left. Every rational part of my brain said to
Speaker 2: pack up and go, but I'm stubborn and I don't
Speaker 2: like being told what to do. So I moved to
Speaker 2: a different part of the valley, set up near an
Speaker 2: oak stand I knew the deer liked. The storm hit
Speaker 2: exactly three hours later, came out of nowhere, violent and
Speaker 2: sudden lightning, thunder rain, coming sideways. I took shelter under
Speaker 2: a rock overhang, watched the creek turn into a torrent.
Speaker 2: The storm passed as quickly as it came, leaving everything
Speaker 2: dripping and fresh. That's when I heard them moving through
Speaker 2: the valley, multiple somethings, big, deliberate. I could hear branches breaking,
Speaker 2: not like something pushing through carelessly, but like they were
Speaker 2: being moved aside purposefully. I pressed myself deeper under the overhang,
Speaker 2: stay tuned for more sasquatch out to see.
Speaker 1: We'll be right back.
Speaker 2: After these messages. Through the rain misted air, I saw shapes,
Speaker 2: three maybe four tall, bipedal covered in dark hair that
Speaker 2: looked almost black when wet. They moved along the creek,
Speaker 2: stopping occasionally. One bent down examined something in the mud.
Speaker 2: Another stood perfectly still, head tilted like it was listening.
Speaker 2: They knew I was there, had to, but they didn't approach,
Speaker 2: just went about whatever they were doing, checking their territory,
Speaker 2: like the man had said. One of them, the largest,
Speaker 2: turned in my direction. Even from one hundred yards away,
Speaker 2: I could feel its attention on me. It made a sound,
Speaker 2: low and rumbling that I felt in my chest more
Speaker 2: than heard a warning. I stayed frozen until they moved
Speaker 2: on upstream and out of sight. Then I grabbed my
Speaker 2: gear and got out of there. Ran honestly didn't stop
Speaker 2: until I reached my truck. When I got home, my
Speaker 2: wife asked if I'd had any luck. I told her no,
Speaker 2: the weather turned bad. She looked at me strange and
Speaker 2: said the weather had been perfect all day in town,
Speaker 2: just ten miles away. I went back to those woods
Speaker 2: a week later, not to hunt, just to look. My
Speaker 2: tree stand was gone, not damaged, not knocked down, gone,
Speaker 2: no sign it had ever been there. The trail I'd
Speaker 2: used for twenty years was blocked by falling trees, big
Speaker 2: ones that would have taken a crew to move. The
Speaker 2: message was clear. I found other places to hunt, good places,
Speaker 2: successful hunts. But sometimes I think about that man walking
Speaker 2: those protected valleys, watching, and I think about the others
Speaker 2: maintaining their sanctuaries, keeping some small part of the world
Speaker 2: wild and untouchable. Last month I ran into another old
Speaker 2: time the sporting goods store. He was buying ammunition, mentioned
Speaker 2: he was heading up to hunt that area. I told
Speaker 2: him about the storm patterns up there, how they made
Speaker 2: hunting unpredictable, suggested some other valleys better access more dear,
Speaker 2: he thanked me. Took my advice. Later, I wondered if
Speaker 2: that's how it works, if there are those of us
Speaker 2: who've been warned, who pass along just enough information to
Speaker 2: keep others away without sounding crazy, protecting the protectors in
Speaker 2: a way. I still hunt, still love it, but I'm
Speaker 2: more careful now about where I go. I pay attention
Speaker 2: to the signs, the two quiet forests, the valleys that
Speaker 2: seem empty of human sign despite being perfect habitat. I
Speaker 2: leave those places alone. Some boundaries aren't marked on maps,
Speaker 2: some no trespassing signs aren't written in words, And some
Speaker 2: hunters carry no guns because they're not hunting animals, they're
Speaker 2: watching us. Tom's encounter speaks to something ancient, a negotiated
Speaker 2: coexistence that most of us never know about, secret agreements,
Speaker 2: unspoken boundaries, protected places. But our final story tonight is
Speaker 2: perhaps the most disturbing because it suggests something else entirely,
Speaker 2: not coexistence, not protection, but mimicry learning practice. Jake was
Speaker 2: an experienced solo camper who thought an isolated island in
Speaker 2: Minnesota's boundary waters would give him the perfect peaceful getaway. Instead,
Speaker 2: he discovered that something out there is paying very close
Speaker 2: attention to how we live too close. I need to
Speaker 2: tell someone about this, even though I know how it sounds.
Speaker 2: This happened last September in the Boundary Waters northern Minnesota.
Speaker 2: I was doing a solo trip, something I'd done dozens
Speaker 2: of times before. Five days, four nights, just me in
Speaker 2: the wilderness. Third night, I was camped on a small
Speaker 2: island in the middle of a lake, maybe one hundred
Speaker 2: yards of shoreline total of pine trees, some rocks. I
Speaker 2: picked it specifically because I wanted isolation. No bears to
Speaker 2: worry about on an island, no other campers stumbling into
Speaker 2: my sight, just peace. I'd gone to bed around nine,
Speaker 2: clear night, no wind, so quiet you could hear fish
Speaker 2: jumping half a mile away. I was in that almost
Speaker 2: asleep state when I heard it, the sound of my
Speaker 2: tent zipper, slow deliberate. Someone was unzipping my tent from
Speaker 2: the outside. I froze, heart hammering. The zipper kept moving
Speaker 2: tooth by tooth like whoever was doing it was trying
Speaker 2: to be quiet but wasn't quite managing it. I grabbed
Speaker 2: my knife and flashlight, ready to confront whoever this was.
Speaker 2: The zipper stopped about halfway down. I waited five seconds
Speaker 2: ten twenty nothing. I flicked on my flashlight, yanked the
Speaker 2: zipper the rest of the way down, myself, burst out
Speaker 2: of the tent ready for a fight. Nobody there. The
Speaker 2: island was tying. I could see every inch of it
Speaker 2: in the moonlight. I was completely alone. Checked the zipper.
Speaker 2: It was definitely half undone, not something that could happen
Speaker 2: by accident. Walked the entire shoreline looking for another boat,
Speaker 2: someone swimming anything. Nothing. I convinced myself it was some
Speaker 2: kind of weird equipment failure. Maybe the zipper was defective.
Speaker 2: Came apart on its own, zipped it back up, double
Speaker 2: checked it, went back to bed. Took forever to fall asleep,
Speaker 2: but eventually I did woke up at maybe three in
Speaker 2: the morning to the sound again, but this time the
Speaker 2: zipper was moving up closing, But I was inside the
Speaker 2: tent and nobody was in there with me. The zipper
Speaker 2: pool was on the outside. It was impossible for it
Speaker 2: to be zipping closed from the outside, but that's what
Speaker 2: was happening. I watched the zipper poll moving up the
Speaker 2: track by itself, tooth by tooth, until my tent was
Speaker 2: completely sealed. I sat there until dawn knife in hand,
Speaker 2: trying to make sense of it. When the sun came up,
Speaker 2: I packed my stuff and paddled to a different site
Speaker 2: on the mainland, big established campground with other people around.
Speaker 2: Spent the fourth night there no issues. But here's the
Speaker 2: part that really messes with me. When I was packing
Speaker 2: up to leave on day five, I found something in
Speaker 2: my pack. A tent, not my tent I was still
Speaker 2: using that, A different tent, same model as mine, same color,
Speaker 2: but older, worn, smelled like mildew, and something else, something musky.
Speaker 2: It was stuffed in my pack under my food bag.
Speaker 2: I know for a fact it wasn't there when I
Speaker 2: started the trip. I'd packed everything myself checked it twice.
Speaker 2: This tent appeared sometime during that night on the island.
Speaker 2: I left it at the ranger station, told them I'd
Speaker 2: found it at a camp site. They looked at it
Speaker 2: got quiet. The older ranger asked exactly where I'd found it.
Speaker 2: When I told him which island, he exchanged a look
Speaker 2: with the partner. We've had some reports from that area,
Speaker 2: he said, carefully, unusual activity. We're recommending people avoid that
Speaker 2: chain of lakes for now. I asked what kind of
Speaker 2: activity he wouldn't elaborate, just said they were investigating. But
Speaker 2: when I was leaving, the younger ranger followed me out
Speaker 2: that tent. He said, We've had three other people turn
Speaker 2: in the exact same tent this summer, same model, same age,
Speaker 2: same smell, all founded in their gear after camping in
Speaker 2: that area. What do you think it means, I asked.
Speaker 2: He shook his head. I don't know, but two of
Speaker 2: those people said something tried to get into their tent
Speaker 2: at night, heard zippers, breathing, footsteps, but never saw anything.
Speaker 2: I did some research when I got home, found some
Speaker 2: old reports from that area going back decades. Disappearance is
Speaker 2: sure that happens in wilderness areas, but also weird stories
Speaker 2: duplicate camp sites appearing overnight, people finding their exact setup,
Speaker 2: tent gear, everything replicated on a nearby island, always empty,
Speaker 2: always perfectly arranged, like someone was practicing being human. There
Speaker 2: was one story from the eighties that really got to me.
Speaker 2: A group of boy scouts camping in the area. One
Speaker 2: kid woke up in the middle of the night to pee,
Speaker 2: saw another tent near theirs that hadn't been there when
Speaker 2: they went to sleep, looked inside and saw himself or
Speaker 2: something that looked like him, sleeping in the same position
Speaker 2: he'd just been in. He screamed, woke everyone up, but
Speaker 2: when they looked, the extra tent was gone. I haven't
Speaker 2: been back to the boundary water since, can't bring myself
Speaker 2: to do it. I keep thinking about that zipper moving
Speaker 2: by itself, about someone or something trying to get into
Speaker 2: my tent. But worse, I think about that other tent
Speaker 2: in my pack. Why leave it there? What was the point?
Speaker 2: My theory? And I know how insane this sounds, is
Speaker 2: that something up there is learning, watching us, copying us,
Speaker 2: trying to understand how we work the tents, the zippers,
Speaker 2: the mimicry. It's like it's practicing. I still have nightmares
Speaker 2: about waking up to find another tent next to mine,
Speaker 2: identical in every way, and looking inside to see something
Speaker 2: that's almost me but not quite, something that's learned to
Speaker 2: look like me, act like me, but doesn't understand the
Speaker 2: why of any of it. The sound of a tent
Speaker 2: zipper used to mean safety to me, getting sealed in
Speaker 2: for the night, protected from the elements. Now it makes
Speaker 2: my skin crawl because I know that sometimes the thing
Speaker 2: operating that Zipper isn't human, and it's trying to understand
Speaker 2: what we are by copying what we do. That tent
Speaker 2: that appeared in my pack, I think about it a lot.
Speaker 2: Wonder where it came from, Wonder who it belonged to originally.
Speaker 2: Wonder if they ever made it home. Wonder what happened
Speaker 2: to them if they didn't. Six stories, six encounters people
Speaker 2: whose lives were changed by something they can't fully explain.
Speaker 2: You might be wondering if these stories are connected somehow,
Speaker 2: If the watchers on the ridge are the same beings
Speaker 2: that protected those Tennessee valleys. If the creature that young
Speaker 2: person fed is related to whatever ran Martha off her land,
Speaker 2: If the mimicry in the boundary waters is the same
Speaker 2: intelligence that creates those voices in the fog. The truth is,
Speaker 2: we don't know, And maybe that's the point. We live
Speaker 2: in an age where we think we've discovered everything, mapped everything,
Speaker 2: explained everything. But these stories remind us that mystery still exists,
Speaker 2: that there are still things out there that don't fit
Speaker 2: into our neat categories of known animals, things that watch
Speaker 2: us from the edges of our world, sometimes curious, sometimes protective,
Speaker 2: sometimes hostile, but always other. Each person who shared their
Speaker 2: story with us tonight had to make a choice about
Speaker 2: what to do with their experience. Some, like Marcus and
Speaker 2: said Era, simply moved on, filing their encounters away as
Speaker 2: things they'll never fully understand. Others like Tom became quiet
Speaker 2: guardians of dangerous knowledge, subtly steering people away from places
Speaker 2: they shouldn't go, And some like Martha and Jake were
Speaker 2: left with a fundamental shift in how they see the wilderness,
Speaker 2: no longer a place to escape to, but a place
Speaker 2: where we're merely tolerated guests. If you take anything from
Speaker 2: these stories, let it be this respect the wild places.
Speaker 2: Listen to that ancient instinct that tells you when you're
Speaker 2: not alone, pay attention when the forest goes silent. And
Speaker 2: if you ever find yourself in a situation where every
Speaker 2: fiber of your being is telling you to leave, leave,
Speaker 2: because somewhere out there, in the spaces between what we
Speaker 2: know and what we don't, in the deep forests and
Speaker 2: remote mountains, something is watching, something is listening, Something remembers
Speaker 2: when the world was theirs alone, And sometimes in those
Speaker 2: rare moments and our world's overlap, we get a glimpse
Speaker 2: of something that reminds us we're not the only intelligence
Speaker 2: on this planet. We're not even the oldest. The next
Speaker 2: time you're out in nature and you get that feeling,
Speaker 2: that prickle on the back of your neck, that sense
Speaker 2: of being observed, remember these stories. Remember that the unknown
Speaker 2: isn't always hostile, but it's always worthy of respect. And
Speaker 2: maybe just maybe give a small nod to the shadows
Speaker 2: between the trees, an acknowledgment, a sign of respect, a
Speaker 2: recognition that we share this world with mysteries we may
Speaker 2: never fully understand. After all, they're watching us, aren't they.
Speaker 2: In