Speaker 1: At a book.
Speaker 2: If you'd like to be able to listen to the
show without ads and have full access to bonus content,
that's an option. To find out how, please go to
Dogmanencounters dot com forward Slash podcast. If you listen to
last Friday Night Show episode six nineteen, you heard tonight's
guest Wiley Birou come on and talk about a pretty
darn unnerving dogman encounter he had. Well, he had so
much to share with us that night on that show
that I didn't have enough time to ask him questions
about that experience. So I asked him if he'd be
interested in coming back on to answer those questions, to
do a Q and A basically, and he agreed, So
here he is back to do that. Hevn said all that,
Thanks again so much for coming back, Wiley. I appreciate it.
Speaker 1: Hey, Vic, it's no problem, my pleasure. How you doing today?
Speaker 2: Doing good? But more importantly, how are you?
Speaker 1: I'm doing excellent. We got a lot of snow here
in New Jersey. I've been shoveling out the driveway. I
shoveled out my neighbor's driveway. But other than that, we're
doing really well.
Speaker 2: Well, that's good as long as you can say that
that's a great thing.
Speaker 1: Wiley.
Speaker 2: For anyone who missed episode six nineteen, please give us
a brief bio in yourself.
Speaker 1: All right. So I grew up in New Jersey, and
ever since I was a little kid, my mother took
me I'm hiking across the street. I grew up in
a preserved area, which was a thirty six thousand acre
part preserved for wildlife, which is pretty It's one of
the largest expansions of preserved land with the highest density
of population surrounding it. So growing up in New Jersey,
I was actually really lucky to have the outdoors just
right at the tip of my fingertips. So I was
able to explore and go hiking as a kid, which
really drew me into like pursuing a career towards the outdoors.
So after high school, I went to a wilderness school
in Washington State where I learned to survive in the outdoors.
The experience was really amazing. The experience was about a
year long, and after the year long survival program, I
ended up moving back to New Jersey. I did AmeriCorps,
where I volunteered all around the country helping different people
during natural disasters, wild forest firefighters, and basically doing other
service based projects around the country. So that's not nature oriented,
but giving back to people is just something else that
I'm very passionate about. So I did amer Corps and
then I ended up wanting to move back to Washington State.
And when I moved back to Washington State, I ended
up getting my four year degree in wildlife biology and
forest management. While I was in Washington State, I did
a bunch of hiking, mountaineering, backpacking, and it was just
absolutely incredible. But I eventually moved back to New Jersey,
where I became an arborist. I learned all the tree
species here in New Jersey, I learned how to take
care of all the plants and shrubs, and you know,
doing the grind in New Jersey was just rough. And
I eventually moved back to Oregon. I moved back to
Oregon in twenty twenty five and I became a wild
and forest firefighter. And I actually just recently moved back
to New Jersey. So basically, throughout my life since I
was eighteen, I've just been pursuing a career involving the
outdoor and also service based projects, like, I really love
giving back and that's kind of what drew me to
becoming a firefighter. Firefighting you get to be in the
outdoors and you get to like really help people. So,
to make a long story short, that's where I'm at today.
I'm back in New Jersey. I'm looking for work. But yeah,
that's a little bit about myself. I'm really into the
outdoors and I really like to give back.
Speaker 2: Listening to you talk about all the things you've done
and do, it's clear that you're as nice and benevolent
as the day is long. I'm really impressed. I really am.
Speaker 1: Oh, thank you, Vic, thank you. Yeah, helping people is
what makes the world turn around. If you have a
chance to help somebody or something, even if it's a plant,
do it because that helps the world go around.
Speaker 2: You're a good man. Like I told you before, I
just hope you never change. For anyone who missed that
show Friday night, please give us a quick rundown of
your encounter now.
Speaker 1: Sure thing. So, I had been on a seventeen day
camping trip. I had a bunch of vacation time saved
up from working in the tree service industry. I'd been
working in the tree service industry for about three years,
and if I didn't use my vacation time, it wasn't
going to roll over or I wouldn't be able to
get to use it. So in right before January, I
decided to go on seventeen day camping trip to Florida.
While I was in Florida at the time, I was
in a really intense relationship. I thought I was with
the girl that was going to marry. We were planning
on having kids, getting married, and just having a whole
life together. But anyway, it ended up in a big
broken heart. So she actually dumped me while I was
on the trip, and one thing led to another. I
was just super heartbroken. This was a first some I
had to like move back into my parents' house in
my thirties, and it was really a difficult situation. And
one evening I was I was having a moment. I
was just feeling the feelings and I was here alone
at my parents' house and I decided to go on
a walk into the forest at night without a flashlight
because this is where I grew up, Like the forest
out here is my serenity. I come out. I go
into the forest to find peace. But at this moment
in time, I wasn't in the best head space, and
I went into the forest right across the street from
my house, this thirty six thousand acre preserve which has
a has a recorded Bigfoot sighting. But you know, that
was not my concern at the moment. I just wanted
to go out into the forest. There's this spot out
there called Devil's half Acre, and it's basically it's an
unknown spot. Like you could look up Devil's half Acre
and the Saralands. I'm sure you'll find something, but there's
not too many people that know where it is. I
think I might be the one person who actually knows
the location today who lives in Illsborough. But there's no
trails that take you there. It's off the beaten path,
so anyway, it's not a far walk from my parents' house.
It's basically a ten minute walk through the forest. And
after going to the Wilderness School in Washington, I got
really used to hiking at night without a flashlight. The
more you hike at night, the better night vision gets,
and I'm always trying to practice that. So I went
out into the forest at night with a broken heart,
really mourning this whole relationship, not really exactly knowing how
to express my emotions and stuff. So I had one
of those moments where you look at the sky and
scream why me. So I was out there just having
a moment, letting go, and all of the sudden I
heard a growl and the growl was clearly a canine,
which just caught me off guard because after studying wildlife biology,
you really learned the habits of canines and just wasn't
the typical place that you'd hear a canine of that size.
So I'm out there and like sure in the forest
where I was, I know there are fox dens and
stuff like that, but the growl that I heard was
so low and scary that clearly I decided I need
to leave. When you're in the forest by yourself with
no flashlight and something growls at you, it's really unsettling.
And this forest growing up next to it it's my home.
So I've I grew up kind of feeling like I
was king of the forest here. Nothing could really bother me,
and if there's anything out there, they would respect me.
So I went out into the forest with a broken heart,
and I was just being loud and obnoxious and kind
of disrespectful to whatever is out there. This park is
closed at night, there's no access to people can't access
it during the evening. So people going out into the
forest and being extra loud, it's just, uh, it doesn't
really happen often. So I'm out there, I hear a growl,
and immediately I knew I need to leave, So I
just I got up and I started trying to make
my way out of the forest as fast as possible.
So as I'm coming out of the forest, there's a
road you have to cross to get into a field.
There's where my parents' house is located. There's a one
neighbor by my parents' house and a field, and I
basically the mountain side is on the other streets other
side of the street. So I'm coming down out of
the forest off of the mountain. I crossed the street
into the field and I start making my way towards
There's a couple of green belts that lead to another field.
So there's a field that I'm crossing into a green belt,
and another field than my neighbor's house and then my
parents' property. So I'm coming down out of the forest
and I cross the street and I get into this
field and I'm make my way through the green belt
and I get into the next field, and I hear
whatever was growling at me was following me, and I
could hear it coming through the woods kind of in
the direction that I'm coming in, and that really kind
of freaked me out because that's just not typical animal behavior.
So basically that scared me to my wits end, and
I ended up running through the field and I make
it to the green belt that leads to my parents' property,
and I make my way over to the door that
I would enter to get into the room that I'm
staying in, which is the room that I'm saying in
is basically a photography studio. There's two buildings on my
parents' property, the main house and this old Amish barn
that my dad turned into a landscape architecture office and
a photography studio. So right now, while I'm in between places,
I'm staying in my parents' photography studio, and at that
time I was as well. So I'm getting through this.
I ran through the field and I'm coming through the
green belt to go into my property, and I make
my way through my property and I go into the
door and I leave the door open, and I kind
of just listened to see what was following me. And
I can hear something big coming through the field and
it's panting, and I got really kind of nervous. I
was nervous the whole time. But this canine clearly canine.
I thought it was a bear at first. Well, I
didn't think it was a bear, but it looked like
a bear. And this creature walks basically right in front
of me through my parents yard. I could just see
the shadow of it, silhouetted and whatever it was like,
it was huge, and I could hear it breathing as
it walking right past my door. And it goes across
my parents' yard into the next field and I look
at it sit down in the field and it's doing
a weird growl and bark and it was making noises,
and I decided to whistle at it. And when I
whistled at it, it stopped making the noises and it
registered my whistle and then it continued with this growl. Meanwhile,
I can see it in the field over sitting canine like,
and it starts growling and barking and it did this
crazy the growl bark that turned into a howl. And
after studying wildlife biology for so many years, like my
name is Wilie and coyotes are kind of my spirit animals,
so I've actually done some coyote research. I've fed coyotes
from my hand. I also got a chance to do
wolf research and Idaho and I got to track wolves
with this amazing researcher. So I'm very familiar with canines,
and this was a canine that I'd never heard before,
and it struck me, it struck me to be something different,
and the sound it made was just unlike anything I've
ever heard, and just being in that situation where we're
getting stocked by an animal from a distance like that,
it's just not like any other animal behavior. And for
the next couple of weeks afterwards, which was really really unusual,
because I had no idea what exactly I was looking at,
except that my intuition told me that this was not
a wolf, not a coyote. And I had heard of
dog man before, and that's exactly what my intuition was saying,
like this is not something normal, this is you know.
I was in denial, but there's nothing else that could
have been other than a dog man in my opinion.
So basically, the next couple of weeks afterwards, I had
these really weird dreams where something was looking at me
through the window and it freaked me out so much
I tried covering the windows. The windows in this room
had no shades, and I started locking the doors every night,
which I've never done before. And I actually just moved
back here from Oregon and I haven't had any weird
feelings and I haven't had the sense that I need
to lock the door. But so that was just like
a really really reaction from the experience that I had,
and that's basically what I had. That's my dog man experience.
I had something tracked me and follow me from the forest,
which is just really odd animal behavior. I've been in
close proximity to mountain lions, and I've been stalked by
a mountain lion, but the difference between being stalked by
a predator like that is their stealth like the mountain lion.
I didn't realize there was even stalking me until the
last second order we made eye contact. This creature, whatever
it was, was stalking me and letting me know that
it was stalking me. It was keeping a healthy distance away,
but it clearly was escorting me out of the forest,
which was I knew and not normal animal behavior. And
so this experience like really freaked me out and I
ended up looking up a dog man. I looked up
anything I could. I did a bunch of research on
dog man after this experience, because my intuition was telling
me that this had to be a dog man and
that's how I found your podcast. And after listening to
your podcast, I heard a few other encounters that were
that took place in the same county, and that just
kind of verified it. Literally, there was a gentleman that
was on your show that I think was probably only
a few miles away. So I kind of led me
to believe that I might be in a dog man
hot spot. And also after that fact, my parents saw
something weird. I told my parents about the encounter and
they kind of laughed at me. But literally, within that
same week, my mom saw two canine figures. She thought
they were deer at first, but when she was inspecting
them looking at them, she realized those weren't deer, that
the hair was way too dark and she realized that
they were canine canines out there, some kind of canine.
She didn't know what they were she but they, she said,
they're as big as dogs. And when she noticed them,
they noticed her, and they dashed away like lightning, faster
than any animal she'd ever seen. And like maybe a
week later, my dad witnessed the same two creatures that
were when my mom saw them. They were in the
back of our property. When my dad saw them, they
were on the outer edge of one of the fields,
and the same thing happened. My dad saw them and
they noticed him, and my dad said they they ran
like faster than an the animal he'd ever seen. And
my parents called me up and they're like, hey, Wiley,
we saw a dog man. And they were kind of
joking about it, and they told me there what they saw,
and yeah, so they were kind of joking about it.
They don't really believe that they saw a dog man,
but they definitely saw something that, you know, got their attention.
And after my mom saw that, she started taking pictures.
She found one picture of like a giant canine track
right outside of our our barn, and our barn door
has a cat door in it, and right in front
of the cat door was this gigantic canine track in
the snow. And uh yeah, So, like I don't think
my parents really believe what they saw, but like, deep down,
I think they know there's something out here that's strange,
because every once in a while they'll tell me this,
not every once in a while, like once they told
me they saw a track and they saw canines. But
that's basically all the activity that I've had that they've had.
I've been in organ this whole time, but since I've
been back, the few days i've been back, I haven't
had any activity. But that's kind of what happened. To
sum it up, Yeah, that's a lot.
Speaker 2: It really is. A dog mean encounter can teach you
a lot about yourself when all said and done with
regards to that encounter, of course, would you say that
the bulk of what you learn from it? Would you
say the bulk fit was outward or inward?
Speaker 1: I would say it was. That's a that's a good question.
Speaker 3: Well, basically, uh, I would say it was somewhat bold because, uh,
basically I started researching the creature and heard a lot
more encounters that seemed very credible.
Speaker 1: But you know, it did seem to test my feelings
and emotions. And you know, after having experience an experience
like that, I I've never really felt scared to live
where I've lived like this, this forest here in New
Jersey has always been my sanctuary, my safe space, and
I've never really like felt too nervous. But after having
that encounter, I I was honestly scared to like go outside,
and where I'm staying at right now, you have to
go outside in order to use the bathrooms and stuff
like that. So after having that encounter, really it really
kind of gave me PTSD. For a while, I wouldn't
leave the door unlocked and I was trying to cover
up the windows because I was having these vivid dreams
that something was watching me. But you know, moving back
to New Jersey and moving out of my parents' house,
that PTSD sort of simmered away. But yeah, it was
definitely a little bit of both internal and external, because
it was internal at the moment because I was like
terrified of my parents' property for a while. And I
would say it's also external because I dove into this
topic and just started doing so much research and now
I believe that there's definitely something out there, so a
little bit of both.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's how it normally goes. And sometimes the only
way you can learn certain things about yourself is by
having a profound experience like the one.
Speaker 1: That you had that night.
Speaker 2: With that in mind, and with that being said, what
surprised you most about what you learned about yourself after
having that.
Speaker 3: Encounter probably the fact that I have a craving for more.
Speaker 1: I want to learn more about the subject. I'm definitely
I would like to have a better sighting. You know,
you better watch out for what you wish for. But
at the same time, studying wildlife biology and tracking lousive animals,
the fact that there's something that could be unknown out
there just really intrigues me, and I want to learn more.
I'm not really out here to prove it that anything
is real or that exists. I really want to unpay
these creatures the respect that they deserve and give them
their space. But I definitely want to learn more. And
you know, after having a scary situation like that, you
would think that maybe I'd be intimidated to learn more,
But just after so many life experiences that I've had,
I realized, like sometimes pushing your comfort zones and doing
something that scares you makes you stronger in the long run. So, like,
though though this topic is unnerving and I don't really
know what to think about the behavior of this creature,
I am interested to learn more, especially after hearing people's
encounters and stories. You know, you hear some that are
obviously aggressive, and then sometimes you hear some that aren't.
You know, mine mine was kind of unnerving and aggressive
because when I had the chance to whistle and like
kind of interact with the creature, I didn't get a warm,
fuzzy like vibe. I got a growl and a howl,
and it was clearly trying. It was clearly an aggressive
behavior that it was trying to display. So with that said, uh,
I think these are apex predators and you should always
give your give these give animals their space. So it's
just a touchy subject, you know, It's really difficult to
figure out how to go about even trying to research
something like this, and the research that I do is
basically just for my own enlightenment. I'm you know, I
don't really want to prove any any of these cryptos
are real, so but I do want to know more
about these creatures, and I would love to be able
to study them. I'm fascinated by all nature and wildlife,
and these creatures exist, you know, they're here, they're part
of nature. So yeah, that's what really surprised me the most.
Speaker 2: Well, it's obviously you have a lot of curious You're
obviously very intelligent, you love the outdoors, you love nature.
It's only natural that you try to find out all
you can about these guys. So yeah, that doesn't come
as a surprise. Now, you just mentioned respect, and obviously
you'd be the last person to ever intentionally disrespected dog men.
But have you ever thought about the possibility that that
dog men vocalize the way it did when you're listening
to it just outside your door that night, because of
you going into what just might have been its home,
or it might have considered to be its home, i e.
The Devil's half Acre and yelling why me, Uh.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I definitely think that I had something to do
with it. You know, if these animals are out there
and they're apex predators and they look at humans like
you know, you know, what are big bodies of meat
that can pretty easily be taken down I'm sure it was.
Who knows what kind of hunting patterns I was disrupting,
or any kind of piece I was disrupting. I'm sure
these things don't really appreciate humans coming into their territory
and being loud and disruptive. I don't think any animal
would would appreciate that. Probably no human would either, So I,
you know, it makes sense that I would get a
reaction like that based off of how I was feeling
and how I was acting and how loud I was being.
Typically when I go into the forest, I try to
keep a calm, a calm mind, and I try to
be respectful and quiet and listen to the forest and
usually have great positive experiences. But right that day I
was I was I wasn't doing that at all. I
was going out there with my feelings emotions. It's just
interesting that, you know, I went out there and expressed
these emotions and had another an emotional experience too. So
it's weird that how that works. But I think if
anyone went out there and was being really loud and
abrasive and doing something wrong at that time of night,
that they would have a similar experience. And there was
another day where I went out there, and I had
two little puppies and I went out. I went out
hiking at night the sarlands with the puppies, and the
whole time I didn't go very far. I like literally
went on the first loop of the trail, and the
whole time I was out there, my puppies were just
cowering in fear, just whimpering, and uh, yeah, I turned
around quick. But yeah, when you grew up in an
area and you consider it your home, you kind of
like feel like there's nothing out there that can harm you.
But the reality is when you go out into the forest,
you're out of your element to a certain extent, you know,
I mean not out of our elements, but we as
humans live in a little bubble. We're not living a
primitive style of life, and you know, so like, yeah,
I feel like it's really important to respect the animals
that call that their home.
Speaker 2: It it'd be nice if we were in charge, but
in most cases we're not. And that's all there is
to it. Like you just said, now, you just mentioned
the negative feelings that you had that night, and when
we spoke for the first time, you told me about
the negative energy that you're putting off at the Devil's
half Bacre. But before this all happened, you knew about
dog men? Did you know about the tendency for negative
emotions like that to tend to draw them in.
Speaker 1: Absolutely not. I'd heard about dog man because I'm into
the bigfoot subject, but I never gave it like two cents.
I never really thought much into the subject until I
had this encounter. So also, growing up in New Jersey,
it's so densely populated, you kind of feel like there's
no predators out here. Cat fox. I think we have bobcat.
I believe we do have mountain lion out here. I've
seen sign, I've seen scat. But you know, if you
ask a wildlife biologists in the area, they're going to
say there's no mountain lions, and there's no wolves, and
there's no big predators. The biggest predator probably they'd say
it's our coyotes. I'm not really afraid of coyotes, And
when I went out there, I was kind of thinking,
I'm top predator and I have nothing to worry about.
But I was quickly humbled. That's for sure. When you're
when you're outside without a flashlight in the forest and
you hear something gral at you flips that switch really quick.
So I went from feeling like I was king of
the forest to extremely vulnerable, like I could be taken
out quick. So that's those are the vibes I was feeling.
And I was not expecting that at all, to say
the least.
Speaker 2: Well, you had no reason to expect it. Why do
you think that dog man responded to your whistle the
way it did?
Speaker 1: Oh, that's a really interesting question, because I wasn't expecting
it to react to my whistle whatsoever. But you know
it was, it was following me. I heard it close
when I was in the forest yelling into the sky whimy.
I heard it not too far away at that point.
It had to have been like thirty feet. It was
a close growl. Like Devil's half acre is literally half
of an acre. So the Devil's half acre is this
boulder field out in the middle of the forest. There's
a creek that leads to Devil's half acre. Basically, there
was rocks in the creek that get bigger and bigger
and bigger until you can't hear the see the creek anymore.
You could just hear it and they call it the
Rumbling Rocks. But this there's a huge boulder field where
there's boulders that are the size of school buses, huge
boulders like mountain esque features right here in New Jersey.
People that grew up in Hillsborough don't even know that
there are mountainous features like that in this town. So
Devil's half Acre, it's pretty hidden. But yeah, I was
not thinking that I would be really disturbing anything out there.
I you know, any wild animal too that could be
out there. I would think that me yelling into the
sky like I was so aggressively would have scared it away.
You know, animals typically are afraid of humans and don't
want anything to do with humans, even predators like mountain lions.
They evolved to not hunt humans and typically if they
hear a human, they're gonna leave. Same with bears, same
with most predators. So I was out there thinking I
was totally safe and totally fine, and here in a
growl like that really caught me off guard.
Speaker 2: Well, you didn't have any reason to think that anything
like that was going to happen, So you can't be
faulted for that. Do you know how the place got
its name. How the Devil's half Acre are in that name, That's.
Speaker 1: A great question. No, I do not know how Devil's
half Aer got its name. I always wondered. That's definitely
something I need to research, but I have no idea.
But I'm sure there's a reason for it. Definitely. I
think in the Sara Lens there are some secrets. Like
you look at this forest and you just get an energy.
There are some things out there, and it has a
kind of a foreboding vibe to it, but at the
same time, it's really inviting. It's a really beautiful place
and a beautiful space. It's one of my safe spaces,
so you know, knowing that there could be things lurking
out there is a little unnerving. But at the same time,
I feel like if I go out into the forest
with a good headspace, I'll be fine. But I do
not know how it got its name, and I would
be I would love to know if anyone in New
Jersey has heard of Devil's half Acre and has any
idea of its history, I would I'm definitely interested.
Speaker 2: We don't know how it got that name, but I
can guarantee you this. I'm sure it's not for a
reason that's going to give us a warm and fuzzies.
That's pretty much.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I think there's like a some sort of history
of like places being named devil and having some sort
of sort of like negative history to it. So it's
kind of interesting that there's like a place named Devil's
half Acre right across the street. I have no clue
why it's named that, but you know, I do know
that it has a it did have a large Native
American presence. Like when you're hiking through the Sarlans often
you'll find tree Bend and I've actually found petroc glyphs
that were carved on top of a boulder. And it's
really cool because I'm uh. These petroc glyphs were found randomly,
and in order to get to the top of the boulder,
I had to climb a tree. I climbed a tree
with a few of my friends to get on top
of this boulder and there are all these petroc glyphs.
And this was in high school, and we all put
our own carved, our own names and pictures around the
petrick lyfts. But I was never able to refine those
petroc glyphs. I know exactly. I kind of know the
general area where I did find them, but I haven't
been able to find them again. But there is a
large Native American presence and not now, but there was
a large Native American presence in these in this forest.
I don't know if that has anything to do with it,
but I do know that there are a lot of
dog Man's sidings near cemeteries Native American cemeteries. I don't
know if there is a American cemetery across the street,
but you can find tree bends and stuff like that.
Speaker 2: That sure does sound like a neat area, It really does.
Could you feel it in your chest when the dog
Man made those vocalizations after you whistled at it?
Speaker 1: I did not. I did not, And I have felt
that sensation before, so I know what you're talking about.
But no, I didn't feel it in my chest. So
I don't think that's like says anything in particular. But yeah,
I was definitely able to hear it, but it didn't
like vibrate my core or anything like that. But it
was and it wasn't like crazy loud, but it was
definitely directed towards me, and it was and a very
aggressive growl bark, howl. But no, I didn't vibrate my chest,
and neither did the growl. But the growl did like
scare me.
Speaker 2: Oh, I'm sure it got your moodor running. I don't
out that at all. Did anything you witnessed or experienced
that night as your encounter was playing out to give
you the impression that it might have been a spiritual creature.
Speaker 1: Nothing really made me think it was a spiritual creature.
As far as I'm concerned, it was a flesh and
blood creature. I can hear it moving through the woods,
I could hear it stepping on leaves and sticks. I
could hear it breathing, I could hear it howling, I
could hear it barking. But I didn't do anything out
of the norm that a normal flesh and blood creature
would do. I do believe in spiritual entities, and I
do believe that maybe some of these cryptids do have
some kind of paranormal behavior, But in this circumstance, I
didn't witness or experience anything out of the usual. Basically
just the normal flesh and blood got type of behavior.
So there was definitely a creature that was physical that
was following me. And growling at me. So no, no paranormal,
nothing paranormal.
Speaker 2: Well, it's a mixed bag. Some people see and experience
things that convince them that the dog men they encounter,
they're convinced that they must be spiritual beings from the ether.
But then other people they're convinced that they have to
be just flesh and blood creatures with no special abilities.
So yeah, like I said, it's a mixed bag.
Speaker 1: With what you just said, I mean, if dog men,
if you know, if they're seen around Native American cemeteries
and they're protecting that, I feel like that would be
more of a spiritual entity because you hear that off
over and over and over and no, no normal wildlife,
wild animal would do that. That's just that is paranormal behavior.
And you know, there is there obviously was a large
Native American presence here, so like you know, maybe there
was some sort of spiritual connection, but from what I experienced,
I didn't experience anything unusual. But who knows, who knows?
Speaker 2: Well, as you know, there are so many things about
these guys that we just don't know. All we can
do is guess at and we're never going to know
more than likely. But that's just one of the many
things that makes these guys so interesting. It really is. Now,
let me qualify this by saying, I'm not being critical
of you with this next question here. I'm just curious
about this. Before you had that encounter, you said you
already knew about dog men. With that in mind, why
do you think it took you so long to connect
the dots as that encounter was playing out and realize
what it was right away the moment that you saw it.
Speaker 1: Well, you know, I had briefly heard of dog man,
Like I'm like one of those people that has to
see it to believe it. I had heard well, living
in Washington, I had heard many bigfoot encounters and stuff
like that, and I really was skeptical, especially studying wildlife biology.
So I have a I just have a scientific based mind,
and I try to be skeptical until I can find
some sort of proof that leads me to believe that
maybe there is something out there. So I studied. Uh,
I've I've had close encounters with the wolves. I know
what they sound like, I know what their footprints look like.
I can I can tell you the difference between a
wolf scat and I'm fox scat, and I've also been
around plenty of coyotes. I when I was in the
Wilderness school, I did this little research thing where I
camouflaged myself and I sat in the bushes along a
coyote trail and I would just hide and I'd wait
for the coyotes come by. And there were a few
times where they literally and they knew I was there,
and they came up right to me and sniffed me
and found me. I've also fed a coyote out of
my hand. I was doing park work in Washington State
and there's this park and every once in a whiles
while you'd see coyotes when you're shutting down the park.
And I used to always have bags of beef jerky,
so every once in a while there's some jerky towards
the coyotes, and eventually they came really close. After a while,
they got close enough that they'd eat out of my hands. So,
to make a long story short, I've had a lot
of experience with coyotes, foxes, and wolves, and this was
a This wasn't a coyote or a wolf. There are
no wolves in New Jersey. This wasn't a desiccated dog,
it's just the animal behavior that it displayed was just
totally out of the norm of any canine I've ever experienced.
But my intuition told me right away it was a canine.
I could tell by the gral, I could tell by
the bark. And then when it when I it was
walking past my door and I was trying to basically
listen and hear and see everything that I could, Uh,
I was trying to see what was stalking me. I
was able to see the outline of it basically, and
it was it looked like a canine. It was as
big as a bear, looked like a canine. And my
intuition when like, all right, if this isn't a wolf,
this isn't coyote, this isn't a dog, this has got
to be a dog man. Because you know, I am
very open minded. I don't believe humans have discovered everything
on this planet. I think there's a lot unknown. So
with my open mindedness, I was I just did the
process of elimination. What else could it be? A dog man?
So also the dreams that I had, I didn't even
really like I had the experience that like in the
back of my I was thinking maybe it's a dog man.
But the dreams I had every single night were so vivid,
and basically I was seeing a wolf look through my window,
standing up on two legs, which was really strange. It
was only a dream, but that only made me feel
I don't know, I don't know. It made me feel
like it had to have been a creature that no
one really knows. So yeah, with my experience and my
encryptid interests, I kind of alluded to the fact that
it could possibly be a dog man. And my intuition,
which is usually right, told me it was a dog man.
So like, I think, without a doubt, that's what I saw.
Speaker 2: That makes two of us. And you're just being pragmatic
by just not jumping to the conclusion that it was
a dog man. They gave you every reason to jump
to that conclusion. But yeah, you're just being practical by
not doing that. And that's understandable. That's respectable. It really is.
Speaker 1: And that's when I started like looking into the subject.
I was like, I, my intuition is saying that this
is not a normal creature, and I started looking into
the dog man subject, and that's where I found your podcast,
and that's where I started hearing encounters, and to my surprise,
there had been other encounters and sightings in the same county,
let alone, like not even a few miles away. So like,
after having that experience and hearing those encounters, are really
kind of verified in my head that what I saw
was definitely a dog man, especially after hearing my parents
see these weird canines in the back of our yard
and stuff. So if there is a dog man, I
know there's more than one.
Speaker 2: And that gets me. The fact both of your parents
have had dog me and encounters of their own, but
they still don't want to cross that line and admit
that they're out there unbelievable.
Speaker 1: I know, I know it's unfortunate, but you know, what
are you going to do. You can't teach it old
dog new tricks.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's true. That's a good point. You said that
you had those bad night tiers for two weeks after
you had that encounter. Have you had any sense?
Speaker 1: Uh no, not. So Basically, after I had that encounter,
I had night terrors all the way up until I
moved out, and eventually I moved in with a new girl,
which was great because I had just gotten out of
this terrible relationship, and I was I'm an arborist, so
I was the lead arborous and trainer for my company,
and they were like, oh, there's this new girl that's
gonna be working there, and I was training her and
we hit it off and ended up dating for years
after and she's still one of my best friends in
the whole entire world. But yeah, no, I didn't think so, oh.
Speaker 2: Thank goodness for that. You heard the same call several
times after the night when you had your encounter. But
how close were those new calls to you when you
heard them?
Speaker 1: All? Right, So these fields are probably like one acre each.
Field that's by my house is probably about it an
acre each. So when it crossed through my neighbor's yard
into the green belt into my yard, it had it
was probably forty feet away from me. So I'm looking
at a shadow just across the grass of my yard.
It like cross in front of this pinoak, and that
had to be forty feet away, and it went another
forty fifty feet into the field. So I had a
good one hundred feet of it crossing into my property,
passing the pin oak, and then another fifty feet into
the field. So it was close it was close. I
could hear its foot feet hitting the ground. I could
hear it breathing. When it was in the field, it
was probably seventy five feet away tops. I could see it, uh,
sitting like a canine like you know how dogs sit
and they're just like you're like, good boy, sit like
it was sitting like that my mind's eye. It was
sitting like that facing me. I couldn't really tell because
it was just barely silhouetted, like you could see that
there was like this dark canine. But when it was
sitting up, it looked like it was about four five
feet off the ground, but from seventy five feet away
in the darkest hard to gauge, but that's how far
it was. And that's where it started. That's when I
whistled to it and it started growling, did a growl
it it growled and the growl turned. The growl turned
into a bark, which turned into a howl. It was very,
very bizarre. I've never heard of canine do making noise
like that, but it was really obviously it was a canine.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I was way too close for comfort that night,
it sounds like, but I guess I didn't make myself
so very clear, and I apologize for that. No, when
I was asking how close those calls were Tea, I
was talking about the new ones, the calls that you
heard after the night that you had that first encounter.
Speaker 1: Uh, what do you mean by the calls I heard
after I heard that encounter When.
Speaker 2: We spoke for the first time, I thought you said
that you heard other calls maybe in the distance after
that night when you had that first encounter, like maybe
it was coming back around or something.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I heard it a couple more times, very very
not often. I heard it maybe one or two times after,
and then I never heard it again. I also heard
it one or two times beforehand, but I didn't really
know what to think beforehand, and I actually forgot about
that until you asked me this question. But yeah, I
heard it around literally like one or two nights after,
and it was just basically the same growl bark that
I heard. It was weird because, like I swear, I
heard that on the same gral bark before or even
had this encounter, and that kind of like set and
alarm in my head. But yeah, afterwards, I heard it
like literally once or twice. That's it. And then I
never heard it again, but I did have those like
every night afterwards. I would feel like it was looking
through my window, which was weird, and I had no
idea that that was like a common thing that dog
men do until I started listening to your podcast. It
was weird because, like you know, I had this experience
and I didn't know anything about the dog man topic.
I just heard about it, and I was very skeptical
of the whole entire situation. So then I have this
experience and I didn't really know what to think about it.
I didn't know how to feel about the whole situation.
But it gave me nightmares and I was terrified, and
my nightmares were of this like crazy big ten foot
canine looking ducking down standing on two legs, looking through
my window, and like the picture of it basically, if
you could, less cartoonish, but like it looked like a
star Fox with a longer star Fox from the video game,
with a longer snout and bigger ears, basically the typical werewolf.
But yeah, I haven't heard the noise since, but I
haven't been living here. I moved out shortly after, and
i'd been living in New Jersey for a while, and
then I moved back to Oregon. So this is my
I've been back for about a week now and I'm
in the same place, so I'm keeping my ears open.
But I have not heard anything since. And I only
heard it like briefly, like maybe one or two times
after the fact. That was sort of while I was
just beginning to like come to the grips that maybe
I'd seen a dog man. It took me a little
while to like really accept that fact until I started
listening to your show and Encounters. Like I was trying
to say, I didn't realize that that was a frequent
thing that dogmen did, was look through windows at people,
until I started listening to your podcasts. But before I
ever even had that realization, I was having bad dreams
of this canine looking at me through the windows and
it was really unsettling. And I'm I'm very comfortable in
the outdoors. Like I said, I've been on I've been
a Prince survival instructor for fifteen years. I've been on
survival trips out in the bush in Washington State with
nothing but my hands. The longest survival trip I did
was eight weeks with nothing but my hands, and you know,
I spent a lot of time in the forest and
I went a sleeping bag just on the ground. So yeah,
this was a new subject and a new fear that
I had an experience, and so usually I'm comfortable with
the outdoors, but after having that experience, I was really
shooking and I would lock the door. You know, I'm
out in the middle of nowhere, so there's really no
reason to lock the door, but I just had a
feeling that something could open it and come in and
eat me. It was really unsettling. I don't know if
anyone's had a feeling like that before, but if they have,
they might understand the idea of something with claws opening
up the door and coming in. But yeah, I was
worried that there's a dog man that would eat me,
and I just would have these vivid dreams of it
opening up my door with its raccoon like hands and
coming in. And ever since I moved out, I never
had that fear again, and since I've been back, I
haven't had any fear since, so it's kind of strange.
But now that there's a bunch of fresh snow on
the ground, I'm definitely trying to go tracking.
Speaker 2: Well, it goes without saying, I'm so glad you're able
to enjoy the woods again, Thank goodness for that. That
does make me wonder, though, almost all the things that
you've done in the woods you did before you had
that dog man encounter, talking about being an arborist and
going to the survival school and everything else like that,
if you would have had that dogged me an encounter
before you did any of those many things that you've
done in the woods, you think there's a possibility that
encounter would have derailed your interest in going out and
doing those things.
Speaker 1: Oh man, that's a great question. I don't know because
I was so young when I started that. I was eighteen,
and one of my first experiences in the Pacific Northwest
at such a young age involved the cryptid experience. It
didn't happen to me, but someone in the wilderness school
that I went to had a a run in with
a bigfoot the first night that we were camping on
the property at the wilderness school that I went to,
and they left the program the next day. So that
didn't determine from continuing the wilderness School. In fact, I
kind of thought the person was lying I didn't really
know what to think at the time. I'd never really
even heard of bigfoot. But I don't think so. I think.
I think I believe we are all part of nature,
and nature it's so therapeutic, important and important for us
to have a connection to nature. I don't think anything
could or would deter me from that. You know, if
it's our time to go, it's our time to go.
And I'm trying to accept that right now to help
with the fear when I'm out at night or when
I'm out in the forest alone, because like anytime i'm
out in the forest one, I do have my guard up,
you know, after these experiences, Like it's not like I'm
roaming through the forest like lollygagger around joyful, not just
with no wit, just I keep my wits to me
and I'm always paying attention, you know. I you never
know what can ever happen. Anything can happen when you're
out in the forest, so it's always good to have
your guard up to some extent. But I feel like
I would have still done the wilderness school, but it's
really hard to say. I don't know. If I was
younger and I had that experience, who knows how I
would have reacted. But right now, at this age, I'm
thirty six, I'm not going to let anything keep me
out at the forest.
Speaker 2: Good Man, And I'm so glad it didn't happen before
you did all those things, because, yeah, and by the
odd chance it would have frightened you out of the
woods for good. That would have been a really big shame.
It really would have been. You've had more than one
sasquatch encounter, Wiley, in addition to your dog me an encounter.
Please tell us about the sasquatch encounter that shook you
at most.
Speaker 1: Okay, so I've I've had a few sasquatch encounters. And
it's funny because when I told you about them, you
said that you think that I'm on their radar, which
I don't think I'm on the radar. I think I've
just spent a significant amount of time in the outdoors
because for the amount of time that I've spent the outdoors,
I've had very few encounters and like they're pretty minimal.
They weren't anything crazy. But like, the scariest encounter I
had with the bigfoot was when I was living in
Washington State, basically in Capital Forest. Capital Forest is a
it's a forest near Olympia, Washington that's like basically on
outskirts of the Olympic Peninsula. So it's a it's a
big forest. There's elk, the salmon run goes through the
creeks all throughout the forest. There's mountain lions, black bear,
and you know the occasional bigfoot siding. So I was
my landlord was the grandson of Charles Limberg, which is
kind of cool. I don't know if anyone's heard of
Charles Limberg, but I know the whole Limberg family. Due
to living on this guy's property, he ended up being
a really close friend. We still talk to this day.
In fact, I just moved back to New Jersey and
right before I moved back, I was staying on his
property again for a few weeks just before I left.
But anyway, the Lindberg son, I'm on his property or
Limberg grandson, I'm on his property, and he's got eleven
acres in Washington State. It's really uh rural. It's a
pretty bumble out there. There's a lot of animals, and
his property's kind of open, like there's a there's a
you know, he's got a grassy meadow with a garden,
and like, at the end of the grassy meadow is
the tree line, and I found a game trail that
led into the tree line, and I had a hammock.
So I set up the hammock. And because I would
see Elk every week driving back from the property going
into Olympia, and so I thought, maybe this could be
an Elk game trail. I dodn't really know, but it
was a game trail for sure. So I got this
little four foot step ladder and I hung my aut
hammock tent that I just got. I got this cool
hammock that had like a mosquito net and a rain fly,
and I hung it up seven feet above this game trail.
So I ended up falling asleep, and at some point
throughout the night, I was woken up by something like
poking me, and I clearly woke up. It was as
if something like your friend was poking you, and it
was like wake up, wake up. And I woke up,
and I kind of like was in a daze. I
was in a deep sleep, and I woke up to
my hammock swaying back and forth, and I could hear
something like close by, basically probably the thing that was
poking me. But I made sure to hang my hammock
like high enough above the ground that if at elk
with antlers walked on this game trail, its antlers wouldn't
hit me. It was a good steven feet above the ground.
So anyway, I was woken up to something poking me,
and I'm swaying back and forth, and at that moment,
my heart sunk. I was like freaked out, like what
the heck was that? And I could hear something breathing,
and all of a sudden, I tried to unzip my hammock,
and when I'm unzipping it, it was really loud. I
tried to do as quiet as possible, and it was
just like I was like no, And as soon as
I unzipped it, whatever poked me stamped his ground, stamped
his foot on the ground and went wow, like just
yelled at me. And I at that moment, I had
a fight or flight feeling, and I knew I had
to get out of there, so I I tried to
make my way out of the hammock, and I remember
getting out of it and grabbing it like monkey bars
and swinging and then trying to let go and I
put my feet couldn't touch the ground, and I end
up landing on my behind. And as I was walking
like out of the forest, really really scared, knowing that
there's something behind me. I was close enough to the
house that I lived on and I had seven roommates
at the time, and one of my roommates that lived
in the basement was a gamer, and he would say
up really late playing video games, and he had a
pitple and he let his pipple out as I was
coming out of the forest, and the piple was like
it was a fearless dog. It would chase mountain lion,
it would chase barry. This guy would let the door
open at two in the morning and the dog would
just chase animals into the forest and then come back
when it was ready. So like I'm coming out of
the forest and he opens the door and I'm like,
oh no the dog, and the dog immediately noticed the
commotion started like kind of grunting and walking towards me
in like an aggressive sort of way. And I'm like
talking to the dog like easy boy, easy, it's me.
It's me Wiley, Like I'm saying that, and the dog
tucked its tail its legs and started whimpering and decided
to come up to me, and it put its head
in between my legs and escorted me to the front door,
which was just amazing, honestly, Like I was terrified and
knew there's something in the forest, and the dog reacted
instantly to what was back there. I've never seen this
dog cower and fear like this. It was a pit
bull that was fearless, but yeah, escorted me back to
the house and I went inside and I left the
dog outside, and that was probably the scariest asquatch experience
I had. I don't know what that was. I kind
of thought about it many many times after the fact,
and I came to the conclusion that there is nothing
it could have been other than a bigfoot due to
the fact there are tons and tons of bigfoot sightings
that come out of the Capitol Forest, and I don't
think I think I would have known it if it
was an elk If it was elk Antler's kind of
brushing against me, like what I felt were fingers poking
me and what I heard was a yell on its stomp,
and just the fact I don't think a dog would
cower like it did if there was an elk or something.
An elk usually traveling packs, They're not usually walking around
the forest alone. But that was the scariest bigfoot encounter.
It wasn't the most vivid bigfoot encounter I had. I've
I've actually seen one face to face in Florida, and
I saw I heard one doing vocalizations in Olympic Peninsula
and then I got I saw it at the very
top of the ridge, silhouetted, and it ducked down when
I saw it. But so I've had multiple big foot encounters,
but for the amount of time I spend in the forest,
those encounters are far and few between. But I think
they're out there, and I've seen footprints, and I've seen
plenty of sign For example, I seeing trees that are
flipped upside down with their roots exposed. I've seen that
probably ten different times hiking throughout the forest in Washington State.
Speaker 2: Yeah, after having all those experiences with sasquatch, you're definitely
on the radar in my opinion.
Speaker 1: What do you mean by that? Pick? What do you
mean I'm on the radar? I don't think so. Well.
Speaker 2: It seems like when someone keeps on having encounters with Sasquatch,
it's almost like they tend to just know when you're
in their area, and it seems like for certain people
they just try to seek you out. Not all the time,
but when you have that many encounters, it sure does
seem like they're trying to, at least to some capacity,
seek you out, and that's why you keep on having experiences.
Speaker 1: Well, I think like for the amount of time that
I've spent in the forest, the three encounters that I've had,
they were all in different places. One was in the
Olympic Peninsula, one was in Capitol Forest, and then one
was in Florida. So like, I really I do believe
that these were all different individuals and I don't think
they were seeking me out. But I did have the encounters,
and I do feel like they were able to sense
my energy. I don't know if like there's something about
the energy frequencies that they pick up on and they'll
let themselves be seen by certain individuals. I think that's
the best case scenario home with me, but don't I
don't think I'm on their radar, and if I am,
maybe there's some sort of paranormal aspects of these creatures.
But who knows, right?
Speaker 2: Yeah, who knows, that's right? Which encounter do you think
about more often? Your dog me an encounter or that
sasquatch encounter you just told us about where you're in
the Hammock.
Speaker 1: Well, I uh, I would say the Hammock one I
think about the least because I didn't really see anything.
I was only able to feel something, which was kind
of crazy because like if it was a bigfoot, that
means I was touched by a bigfoot. But I don't
think of that one as much as the encounter I
had in Florida with a big foot. The encounter I
had in Florida, I got to stand Basically, we had
a moment I was standing in front of one, face
to face with a thousand women flashlights shining at it,
and we were able to look at each other and
kind of just like I zoned out, like trying to
figure out what this creature's intentions were as it was
swaying back and forth looking at me. And that's the
one I really think about the most because just this
behavior I when I was standing in front of it
with a thousand women flashlight, I just couldn't tell what
its intentions were. I couldn't tell if they're positive, if
I was in danger, or like what it was thinking.
But it was clearly checking me out and swaying back
and forth and really vigorously looking at me, And I
just have no idea what that means. Typically when I
see an animal or human, I could read their body language,
but this animal's body language was something that I wasn't
able to read. It was definitely fascinated with me, and
I kind of I don't know. I wasn't by myself.
I had a friend with me. He wasn't able to
see it. But yeah, if I was by myself during
that situation, who knows what would have happened. Like it's
interesting because like it looked like as if it was
sizing me up. It was like swaying back and forth,
like looking at me very intently, and as soon as
I had a friend kind of walk up to me,
it balanced so like I don't know if it was
like I'm not going to take on to people, or
this is too risky for me or what. I have
no idea. I don't know if it didn't want my
friend to see it, because my friend didn't see it,
so me and whatever it was had this experience face
to face, just me and it. But if I was alone,
who knows how that would have played out. It's really
interesting to think about. But you know, I know there
are a lot of people that are alone and have
experiences with the bigfoot and get out of that situation
and scaped. So who knows, But that the experience in
the hammock isn't like what I think about most, and
the dog encounter to the dog man encounter isn't like
something that I think about often, especially when I was
living in Organ. When I was in Organ, I was
mostly like focused on bigfoot. I know there are dog
man encounters out in the Olympic Peninsula. I heard when
recently on your show, But uh yeah, I just wasn't
thinking about dog man as much. Now that I'm back
in New Jersey, back in living in the same space
that I was where I had the encounter, It's definitely
on my mind more. But I just haven't had that
intuition that there's anything out there right now. So I
hope that answers your question.
Speaker 2: That does and you being back there that would tend
to make you think about it a lot more. I
get it. Well, it's about time for us to get
out of here wildly. But before we do, do you
have any clothes and comments you want to put out
their forests?
Speaker 1: Yeah? Absolutely. I just want people to think about the
energy that they have before they go into the wild spaces.
You know, before I go into the wilderness, I try
to set my intentions and I try to put positive
energy out there. And if I, if I had, if
I've learned anything from these experiences, going out into the
wilderness without a flashlight and being super emotional isn't the
safest thing that you could do. So if anyone is
ever going out into the deep forest, just try to
set your intentions and put positive vibes out there, and
I think that can go a long way. That's about
it for me, Dick. Thank you.
Speaker 2: Oh you're welcome, And like I told you before, I
really do like the way you think. You're a good man. Well,
having said that, thanks again so much for coming back
on to do this Q and A. Thanks again so
much for just coming on in the first place to
tell us about your encounter. I really appreciate it.
Speaker 1: I thank you so much. Vic, It's been my pleasure.
Speaker 2: Oh you know, you're welcome. It's been a good time.
Thanks again so much, and have a great night.