Speaker 1: Sometime between nineteen ninety nine. In two thousand and one,
I was hunting on a wildlife management area in central Florida.
It was archery and muzzloder hunting for deer only in
wild hog I was hunting alone, but I've never minded that.
I was a shift worker at the time and enjoyed
the solitude, and until that trip in September, I had
never had a bad experience in the woods. I had
built and placed a twelve foot conduit tree stand in
a new area on the south side of the lake
days prior to hunting the new location. I was using
a compound bow and I could shoot roughly sixty to
seventy yards. I had a sweet spot attached to a
pine tree on the edge of a pine platte bordering
a small oak hammock and myrtle trees that acted as
a natural hedge of camouflage. Around two PM, I parked
my truck a mile from the stand and walked in
for an evening hunt. Soon after settling in, I heard
some concerning sounds, and coming from my left near the
myrtle trees about ten to fifteen feet high, I could
hear growling in a very deep breathing. I had first
thought it was an alligator because the paper map I
was using indicated that it was near a lake, even
though I couldn't see the lake. At that point, the
sounds were loud enough that I figured my hunt was over,
so I decided to mimic the sounds. I was answered
by deep, raspy growling that I could feel as much
as I could hear. Surprisingly, it got quiet for the
next several minutes. I was sure they were coming from
the woods, so I started looking intently in that direction,
trying to find and identify the source. I was getting
pretty concerned about the growls when too deer meandered through
some brush about one hundred yards off to my left.
They didn't seem alarmed or panicked in any way, as
if they hadn't heard the sounds just a few minutes ago.
As they calmly moved toward the myrtle trees to my
left and coming within range of a clean shot, I
slowly began to knock an arrow on the bow and
positioned myself to take the shot. I mean, I was
there to hunt, not identify strange sounds. The first deer
had just come into full view and one of the
two foot pile metow bushes and tall grass. When all
hell broke loose. There was an enormous loud crack like
a wooden branch hitting another object, and then wrestling ensued
in the brush just beyond my line of sight. The
second deer turned and ran in the direction it had come,
blowing and jumping over brush as it high tailed it
out of there. I watched it for a minute before
turning my focus back to the location of the attack.
Something sounded like breaking, followed by dragging, and then everything
got quiet. My heart was pounding hard as the realization
of what had just happened dawned on me. A predator
had taken down a deer. But what kind of predator
was it. It occurred to me that whatever it was,
it was preoccupied, and I needed to take advantage of that.
I loaded up my backpack and bow, and I climbed
down as quietly as I could, without taking my eyes
off the spot where it all had happened. Now, I
hit the ground as gently as I could and haul
my butt back to my truck at a dead sprint.
I never got a look at the predator, but I
know it took down the deer. It did so all
while going undetected by both the deer and me. I
didn't have a cell phone back then or a GPS.
I hadn't even bothered to tell anyone my plans for
the day or where I would be hunting. No one
would have known where to look if it had chosen
me instead of that deer. What happened that day scared
the hell out of me, and it left me wondering
for years. Today, I don't go hunting alone. I have
my phone with GPS activated, and I always carry at
least a side arm every time I enter the woods.
I'm fifty years old now, a lot wiser and more
educated now. I know there are apex predators in the woods,
and it's best to be prepared. Dean, I agree with you,
it's best to be prepared if you're hunting down in
Florida and there's alligators and possibly other predators in the woods.
I think you got pigs down there, all kinds of stuff.
But that was such an interesting story. I mean, I
don't think I've gotten one like this where someone actually
you didn't actually witness it, but you knew it was
going on, that this thing grabbed a deer and killed
it and then walked off with it. You never saw
a thing, you just heard it all go down. It
was kind of confirmed by the you were hearing before
the deer came in. I think that's cool. You know,
Carrie Arnold and his bunch have been down in Florida
and they've got all kind of footage of different things
in Florida. Those swamps down there apparently are enough habitat
to hold a lot of these things. And the whole
subject of the Skunk Ape Skunk Ape is fascinating to
me and I enjoy reading up on it, and I
can't wait for Carrie's documentary to come out. It's going
to be really good. So anyway, I'm just rambling, dude.
I appreciate you sending it, Dean. You're a good writer,
and it was a great story and we all enjoyed it.
Thank you. Man. All Right, This man didn't say whether
I could use this name or not, so I kind
of prefer not to. I'll give you his first name.
It's Greg, he writes, I grew up in the Bronx.
To me, Bigfoot was just a legend, a myth, a
fun thing to think about. Despite growing up in the
Bronx all he's felt like a country boy at heart.
So when I got older and married, I bought a
two acre lot, about a third of which is wooded,
and it backs up to the Appalachian Trail. A year
after we moved in, I hired an excavator to clear
out a little bit in the back so we could
put in a pool. While he was there, I also
had him carve a little dirt track through the piles
of dead and down trees to make a motorcycle track
for my son. A few days after the guy finished work,
I decided to walk back there and survey the new trail.
To my surprise, I found several structures built out of
cedar trees, some of which went over the trails forming tunnels.
There were also platforms built twenty feet up in the trees.
And these things were built much better than I could
have ever done. That's assuming I could have budged one
of those big logs. They were all the way too
heavy for any human to move or set in position.
Now on Then I walked back there, and I see
that changes have been made. Sometimes at night i'd hear
strange noises and screams and shrieks. I couldn't identify them.
They didn't sound like coyotes, and they didn't sound like foxes,
but they did sound eerie. I didn't immediately think bigfoot
when I heard them. I just knew there were noises
I didn't have an explanation for. However, looking back between
the strange structures and eyed sounds, my thoughts may have
been leaning toward believing At that point there was a
giant oak back there that was probably four feet in diameter.
The base of this tree sloped out in a way
that formed a perfect backrest. I've spent years under that
tree hunting turkey and deer. Several years ago, I was
sitting there in my favorite spot with my turkey call
mimicking a hen when I suddenly heard leaves crunching behind me.
Something was approaching, and it sounded huge. It was way
too big to be a big old tom I was
trying to identify when it stopped walking and I froze
to my spot When I realized it had come to
a stop right behind me. It felt like I sat
there for an eternity, waiting for whatever it was to
pass behind me. After a minute or two, I was
hit by a futrid smell that immediately sent me back
to the time my mom took me to the Bronx
Zoo when I was a kid. I had gone inside
the ape house and the smell there was so bad
I felt like I was going to pass out. Until
that moment, it was the worst smell I had ever
experienced in my life. What I was smelling now, five
decades later was every bit as bad. Until the moment
I smelled that stenched and instantly related it to the
smell of the zoo. I had never consciously considered that
it might be bigfoot. Now I was terrified, knowing it
might be a bigfoot standing behind me, it would be
nothing for him to reach around the tree and grab me.
After a few more minutes, the wet dog covered in
gorilla poop sky Oh, here we go with the smell description.
After a few more minutes, the wet dog covered in
gorilla poop and dipped in skunk spray smell began to dissipate.
I began to relax a little and slowly stood up
with my twelve gage Remington eleven hundred at the ready.
I leaned out to see what was standing there. It
was nothing. Whatever had been standing behind me had disappeared
along with its smell. No leaves crunching, no shuffling, nothing.
I never got a look at it, but the way
the leaves were disturbed, I'm pretty sure it was huge.
This all took place about fifteen years ago in New York,
an hour and a half north of Manhattan. I never
gave it much thought after it happened. I never told
anyone the story because I could never bring myself to
believe in Bigfoot. I used to joke with my friends
that Bigfoot was lurking in my backyard, but that was
as far as it would go. And then this past summer,
I was riding my bike through the magnificent Northern Casco
Mountains of New York, about two hours north of my house.
It was a beautiful, windless day with spectacular views that
stretched for miles. I have no idea where I was,
because I prefer to go where the back roads take me.
I came out over the crest of a mountain to
the site of a long, straight, narrow road stretching out
in front of me. I could see a house sitting
by itself, with a big tree in the front yard
that sat about seventy five feet off the road. It
looked like the tree was shaking frantically, and when I
got closer, I saw it what appear to be an enormous,
pregnant orangutang sitting under it, stuffing her face with apples.
There was some kind of doodle dog with her, and
it ran over to me and then back to the orangutang.
Apparently they were friends. I had stopped my bike and
was watching this creature, who was periodically glancing back at me,
but she didn't seem threatening at all. I kept my
hand on the throttle just in case. The dog was
running back and forth between us and Miss Bigfoot crawled
around and gathered up more apples. She must have decided
that she needed more of a selection, because she stood
up and grabbed a branch that must have been ten
feet off the ground, and she shook it. I noticed
her posture was much more upright than that of an orangutang,
more like a bigfoot. She had big, powerful legs and
was covered in orange red hair, except for her face,
which was a lot less hairy. I tried to communicate
with her by saying things like hey, mama, hi mama,
but all she did was give me an inquisitive look
and then glanced away. It was like she was used
to seeing people and having people see her. And then
she bent down and picked up a few apples and
started rolling them toward me. When she stood up again,
I noticed her head was about two feet below that
ten foot branch. She took a few steps toward me,
and that was my cue to leave. I politely said goodbye,
and I waved and quickly left. A few miles down
the road, I had to pull over and calm myself down.
My phone was in my bike bag and I could
have taken some pretty spectacular photos, but I was too
scared to get off the bike and do that. After
another five miles down the road, I pulled in to
a little gas station. The person behind the counter said,
you look like you just saw a ghost. Well, actually,
you wouldn't believe what I just saw. I answered, So
you saw Daryl, said the woman with a knowing grin.
Who is Daryl? I asked, Well, that's our local bigfoot.
She said, like it was a normal sight in these parts.
But keep it under your hat. She added, well, that
won't be a problem, I assured her. As I thought
to myself. Evidently they don't know Daryl is a girl.
The following accounts come from the husband of someone who
I work with. She knows about people sharing their stories
with me, so she asked if I'd like to meet
her husband. What follows is an example of his strange
and unexpected encounters while hunting. During the second week of October,
my brother in law arrived at our hunting location just
after five am. It was still dark out and I
like to get out and just settle in to allow
my eyes to adjust to the darkness before I head out.
As I slowly made my way past empty homestead horse corrals,
I was looking for an opening or clearing to just stop,
look and listen. That's when I first smelled it. The
odor reaped so bad. It was worse than any bare
or mountain lion that I've ever smelled, and that's when
I felt like I was being watched. I slowly turned
around and suddenly all the hair on my body stood up.
That caused me to chamber around in my rifle, and
I also unsnapped my holster so I could pull out
my pistol in case I needed it. Ten to fifteen
yards ahead of me I heard a tremendous roar that
was so loud it shook my entire body. The timber
was dark and it was still dark out, so all
I saw appear to be a large, dark shadow. I
could see it standing upright and moving just near the
tree line. As I turned to look at it, it
was looking at me. By this point, it was less
twenty five feet away. As I knelt down to take
aim at it, I couldn't find it in the scope
it was too dark. While on my knees, I popped
one of my three hundred wind mag rounds out of
the magazine and onto the ground so I could retrace
my tracks when it was light out. That's when the
creature started moving down through the bush and trees towards
the creek. When it took the first step, it was
long and a deliberate step in a direction away from me.
I could feel the ground shake when it took that step.
I quickly retreated the three to four hundred yards back
to my truck, where I found my brother in law
still inside. He was holding his pistol up and close
to his chest. I tried to open the door, but
it was locked. Opened the door, I told him, but
he shook his head and he said no way. He
heard it too and grabbed his gun. He said it
made the hair on his body stand straight up, just
like me. We remained in the truck talking until the
sun started to come up and we could see Butter.
It took some doing, but I convinced him to come
with me to where I saw this creature. After we
reached the spot, I located that three hundred wind mag
round and showed it to him. This is where it happened,
and I pointed to a tree where it was. Now
that it is light out, I could also gauge how
tall it was standing beside the tree. I'm thinking it
was nine feet tall. I told my trembling brother in law.
We could also see and follow its tracks in the grass,
as it was so heavy, it packed the grass down
pretty good. So we followed the tracks along the road
for a ways before I noticed that it curiously never
stepped onto the road. It always walked alongside in the
grass all the way down to the creek, where the
ground turned to a really hard clay like black dirt.
You could tell it was really heavy when we could
see then in that hard soil that was an awful feeling.
The creature's tracks continued across the creek and up into
the dark timber on the other side of the meadow,
and that's as far as we dared go. As strange
as it sounds, we continued hunting the rest of the day,
but didn't get anything. The next day, however, I had
to remind my brother that we loved hunting for bull elk,
and we could even see the elk about four hundred
yards to the east. He agreed with me, so we
spent the day tracking elk, only to see cows no bulls.
While we were stalking the herd of elk. I told
my brother that on the way back we could keep
looking for sign from that creature, but he really didn't
want to. He was still scared from that roar. The
man continued the story that the following weekend, another hunter
he knows well went hunting in the same area. In fact,
the man's father in law owns the ranch we've all
been hunting on where these stories took place. I didn't
tell him anything about what happened the week before. This
guy came back after the first day, all scared, saying
something was out there roaring and yelling at him. It
evidently scared him so bad he said he's never going
to hunt again. At this point I interjected with the
story of the team of the men who were cutting
fuel wood and left everything up the mountain as they
fled back down the mountain that would have been in
your marathon number ninety six. He said that location where
it happened and where he's been hunting were only three
miles apart. As the crow flies. He proceeded to tell
me about another incident where he was scouting in an
area not far from where the sasquat scared him and
his brother in law. And here's what he said. While
hiking in an area where these are remnants of old
gold mines from the lake to mid eighteen hundreds, I
noticed a deer stuck up in a tree. Its head
was stuck in a way edge, and its hindquarters were
shredded apart. I look for any sign of a mountain lion,
but I couldn't see any tracks, drag marks, or even
claw marks. The cat would leave struggling to get the
deer up the tree. Nothing, So how did the deer
get up the nearly fifteen foot into the tree. And
what animals shredded it up. It was not picked at,
it was shredded. On another trip, a friend in I
stumbled upon a large teepee structure made out of large trees.
The two of us tried moving the smallest of the trees,
but we couldn't budget. Then, in a more heavily wooded area,
we found one twice at size. It would take a
helicopter or heavy equipment to build such a thing, the
trees were that big. He added that he has several
friends who are veterinarians and taxidermists and they want to
go out with him to see what they can find,
as he finds some really strange stuff. He went on
to say, for example, during one trip, one of my
friends discovered some strange hair. We had it tested, but
the results came back unknown. I told him about Josiah's
hike where he had the stones thrown at him while
he sat inside the teepee. He knew that area well
and continued with a couple of more experiences from the
same area that Josiah hiked. He went on to say,
while turkey hunting with my cousin, I told him that
something big below us was making a lot of noise,
but I couldn't see what it was. Together, we decided
to pack it up and venture down the mountain to
where the loud, thudding and grunting noises were coming from.
After adjusting in his chair, he continued near the creek
where the water had previously been high enough for the
spring to run off, to flood out a bit, and
then recede. I found a large log that had recently
been stepped on. When I saw it, I knew one
of the noises I heard from up the hill was
from something very large and he stepping on it. I
heard it snap, not crack like a smaller branch would make,
but a loud, dull, popping or crushing sound. I could
tell it came from a thick log that was snapped,
and here it was. Part of it was stuck really
deep into the ground. Something very heavy must have stepped
on it, and it had to be heavier than a bear.
And that's all I can say about it. Again, I interjected,
Going back to the man, who, after being yelled at
by one of these creatures, said he was going to
quit hunting. I asked how many people he knows who
have gone hunting in that area and had something frightening
happen to them. He answered, I know five to six
men who were scared so bad they've quit Darren Elk
hunting altogether. At this point, I'd like to remind you
in your audience that this ranch is easily within two
to three miles from the location where the man cutting
firewood had a rock land between him and his team.
It's also within two to three miles from where Dan
and Josiah saw the sasquatch running along the ridge line
after them, as well as where Little Yeti's family cabin is.
In fact, all of the stories I've shared with you
thus far have been within a ten mile radius of
each other. The little Yetti story is coming up next,
so you don't know what that is, but you're about to.
Also remember in your marathon ninety six Billy, the boy
who had sticks thrown at him before hearing kids giggling,
then his dad put a can of doctor pepper outside,
only to have it disappear. Well, that family had several
more encounters, including his wife Tammy, having multiple close encounters
with a large, silver haired male sasquatch, and even Ufo sidings.
I'll be sending more of those soon. So I'm sharing
this with you because I recently came across your channel
on YouTube. I've noticed several similarities to what you read
about and what happened to me eight years ago. I
want to start off by saying I don't know what
I saw. I can't say it was or was not
a bigfoot, nor will I say I don't believe anymore.
I grew up in Swiss, Missouri. At the beginning of
the email, he gives me a little bit of a
description of Swiss, Missouri, and it sounds like a really
great place in the Ozarks. In Missouri. It's really nice
wine country. I think sounds very appealing to me, he writes.
While growing up a hundred and fished all over the area,
even swam in most of the creeks. My family roots
date back to the turn of the century here in Swiss.
My great great grandfather's farm was a wapping five miles
east of where I lived today. Through the years growing
up there, nothing ever happened that I would consider odd
or out of place. As the years passed, I had
adulthood and moved away, thinking there was something better out there.
Then in twenty eleven, I moved back, knowing where I
wanted to plant my roots. I ended up buying acreage
connecting to our family farm, and I built a home
and a barn. I had approximately twenty chickens and five
guineas at this time. Unfortunately, ticks are rough out this way,
and both chickens and guineas enjoy eating them, so I
felt this was a decent investment. Plus the eggs were good.
It was in the early spring, April fifth to be exact,
a cool evening, windows open, and my fiance and I
were sitting on the couch watching a show on TV
when I heard a fuss outside. My dog started barking
and raising cane, so I muted the TV and got
off the couch. Walking into the dining room, I heard
what I believed were codies trying to get at my chickens.
I walked back into the living room and into my
bedroom to grab my gun. As I walked back into
the dining room, I heard my dog really let loose
because he was extremely protective of his chickens. I flipped
on the back porch lights. I walked out onto the deck,
which sits approximately six to seven feet off the ground,
and I could see something in the shadows, and my
old dog had his hair standing straight up and barking
and growling like he'd gone mad. I fired several rounds
into the woods that backed into the Natural Spring Creek.
I heard what sounded like a freight train crashing through
the woods. After a few minutes, I called my dog
back up to the house and we went in. I
told my fiance that what had happened, and she said
maybe a cow had gotten out or something. I thought
for a minute and I said, yeah, I guess that's
what it could have been. Three days later, on Friday evening,
my fiance and I went into Herman for dinner and
to visit some friends. We got home late, sometime just
before midnight. We were pretty wore out, but I always
checked the barn in the chickens when I got home.
As I walked to the chicken coop, I noticed a
feeder laying on the ground. I picked it up and,
thinking my dog had somehow got a hold of it
and drug it out in the yard. As I approached
the chicken coop, I noticed a hole in the chicken
wire approximately six feet up and the hole was about
eighteen to twenty inches around. I opened the coop and
I noticed blood and feathers were everywhere, but only a
couple of chickens were gone. I figured somehow a coyote
or a fox had to get into the coop, but
I couldn't comprehend why or who had made this hole
that size and that high up off the ground. However,
this is the price to raising any small animals out
in the sticks. The chicken wire portion of my coop
is only four feet wide and six feet long. I
normally let the chickens out and run freely to eat
ticks and peck the ground, so I didn't feel I
needed a large run area in the coop. However, that
night I rounded them up and fed them and kept
them locked in the coop due to the coadies and
foxes in the area. This is my attempt at making
it as hard as possible for them to be dinner
and the predators will move on down the road. Later
that same night, after patching the hole with some scrap
chicken wire, I showered and got into bed, wore out
and ready to sleep. I had just hit that spot
where you're asleep but still somewhat alert and extremely comfortable
when my old dog started as crazy barking, and then
I heard this how scream, growling noise I have never
heard in my life, coming from the backyard. I grew
up almost eighteen years in this area and just moved
back after being gone for only five years. I hunt
and I trap everything you can think of. I've heard
a fox scream, I've heard a bobcat scream. I've heard
mountain lions in black bear. I've heard deer grunts and
turkey's gobble, but I have never, ever, ever heard this
noise before. Now. Due to our closest neighbor being approximately
a quarter mile away and that was family, I knew
no one would be on my property this late. So
as I sat up trying to comprehend the noise and
understand what I had heard, I grabbed for my three
hundred wind mag fearing that this isn't an average everyday animal,
and then I heard what I thought to be fencing
being torn. My dog was already at the back door
begging to be let out. He knew something wasn't right.
I opened the door, stepping onto the deck after turning
on the porch lights, and all I could see was
something near the coop. My old dog took off full
sprint towards it. Now, he's fought off countless codies and foxes,
but tonight he wasn't ready for this thing. He got
close and I heard the screaming growl that I can't explain,
and before I knew it, my dog flew into the
side of my deck. This was a good twenty feet
away from where this thing was. Well. Now, I was furious,
thinking that it had killed my dog, and I leveled
my rifle and I shot everything I had in it,
five rounds total, and again I heard crashing like a
freight train going down into the woods near the creek.
I rushed down and grabbed my dog, scared to death
that it was too late. He was about seventy pounds
of pure muscle. I picked him up and got him inside.
I put him on the table and I turned on
the dining room light, and I was horrified that he
was gashed down his side like a razor. Blood had
cut him. He was winding in in tremendous pain. He
was having trouble breathing, and he had lost a ton
of blood. I know growing up on the farm that
it's not right to allow an animal to suffer not
fair to the animal, in my opinion, to let it
lay there and die. I knew what I needed to do,
even though it would kill me to do it. I
took him back outside in the front yard and I
told him that he was a good boy, how much
I loved him, and that it was time for me
to put him out of his misery. I lost my
best friend that night. I spent the next hour digging
a hole with my fiance holding a flashlight and a gun,
just to make sure that that thing didn't come back.
As I buried my dog, I felt anger at this
animal for killing my dog. I felt fear because I
wasn't sure what it was, and then I felt empty
because there was nothing I could do. The next morning,
I went out to see the damage. This thing completely
destroyed the chicken wire, and the only thing that saved
the remaining eleven chickens and all the guineas was the
actual wood coop. However, it had damaged the roof on
the coop too. I believe what angered this thing when
it let out that god off sound was the fact
that it was unable to get in the coop and
grab more chickens. I spent the next two days rebuilding
the coop and following the trail this thing had made
into the woods. I never saw any footprints or tracks,
nor did I find blood or hair. But I will
tell you that it's now twenty nineteen, almost exactly eight
years later, and other than that curious fox or annoying coyote,
I have had no issues. I have never heard that
noise again, and I still live in that same home,
now married to that same woman, and we have a
new dog who will be eight in July. I will
never forget that day, and I'll never forget that sound
that that thing made, and I'll never forget the fear
that that thing brought. I'm not going to say for
sure that this was a big foot, nor will I
say that it wasn't. I can tell you that I've
been to several states hunting bear, boar, elk, and deer.
I've spent more hours in the woods than your average
joke and felt that fear. I've never seen or heard
anything that can compare to that thing. And that's the
end of the story. He goes on to invite me
to Swiss, Missouri, and then he's got a bottle of
Herman's world famous Stonehill wine waiting for me if I
ever get up there, and some good old elk jerky
from the Swiss meat market. Well, thank you very much, Jake.
That's a great story. I don't know what in the
world could have cut your dog like that. When I
read this, the first thing I thought was maybe it
was a pig. You know, these wild pigs get out
and they just have razor sharp teeth, and that's kind
of how they wound animals with their tusts, and they
just slice you with them. I don't know, man, what
a scary story. I got this back in twenty nineteen.
I'm just now getting to it. I've got a few
left from twenty nineteen, but I just finally found this one.
I thought, man, this is a great story to share.
I hope you guys enjoyed it. I know I did.
I really appreciate the writer for sending it ho where
everything's going good up in Swiss Missouri. Body appreciate the story.