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