Speaker 1: Today, I want to tell you about a journey that
Speaker 1: I've been on for most of my life. Ever since
Speaker 1: I was a kid, I've heard tales of bigfoot and
Speaker 1: wild men while spending time with my friends and family.
Speaker 1: As I grew older and read more about the paranormal,
Speaker 1: my interest in encryptids and other things strange only deepened.
Speaker 1: That's why I'm so excited to share with you what
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Speaker 2: Now, what are your reporting? I got a screen going
Speaker 2: on here. Something just kid with my dog. Something to
Speaker 2: kill your dog? My dog. We're flying through there over
Speaker 2: the tree. I don't know how it did it? Okay, damn,
Speaker 2: I'm really confused. All I saw was my dog coming
Speaker 2: over the fence, and they would dead once you hit
Speaker 2: the grill. I didn't see any cars. All I saw
Speaker 2: was my dog coming over the fence. Are you reporting
Speaker 2: we got some wonder or something crawling around out here?
Speaker 2: Did you see what it was? It was enough out here.
Speaker 2: Look him near the window now and I don't need anything.
Speaker 2: I don't want to go outside. Its fight. Hello, hit
Speaker 2: the buddy out here?
Speaker 3: What quin?
Speaker 2: I'm out there? I thought of a venus about text nine?
Speaker 2: I don't know. Easy am out there? Yeah, I'm walking
Speaker 2: right heady.
Speaker 1: Oh. My name's Janet and I've been hunting mushrooms in
Speaker 1: the Coast Range for thirty years. Started when I was
Speaker 1: a kid with my grandpa, kept it up after he passed.
Speaker 1: I know these woods like my own backyard. Every logging road,
Speaker 1: every clear cut, every patch where the chanterelles grow thick
Speaker 1: after the first fall rains. What happened in October twenty
Speaker 1: sixteen made me question everything. I was forty five then
Speaker 1: going through a rough patch, lost my job at the mill,
Speaker 1: my husband had left the year before, and picking mushrooms
Speaker 1: was about the only thing keeping me sane. Plus, with
Speaker 1: the commercial buyers paying good money for Shantarell's, it was
Speaker 1: keeping me afloat financially. That Tuesday, I headed out before
Speaker 1: dawn to my best spot. It's about an hour's drive
Speaker 1: from Tillamook, then another forty minutes on logging roads way
Speaker 1: back in there, second growth forest that's been left alone
Speaker 1: for fifty years, the kind of place where the moss
Speaker 1: hangs thick and the air always smells like earth and rain.
Speaker 1: I'd been picking since first light, had about fifteen pounds
Speaker 1: in my bucket, good haul. The rain had been perfect
Speaker 1: that week, enough to bring up the mushrooms, but not
Speaker 1: so much that they got water logged. I was working
Speaker 1: my way along a hillside, eyes on the ground, when
Speaker 1: I noticed I'd wandered into an area I didn't recognize.
Speaker 1: That's hard to do when you know a place as
Speaker 1: well as I knew those woods. But I must have
Speaker 1: followed the mushrooms farther than usual, ended up in this
Speaker 1: little valley I'd never seen before, old growth on the slopes,
Speaker 1: creek running through the bottom, beautiful spot untouched. The mushrooms
Speaker 1: were incredible. There chantrell's the size of my hand, growing
Speaker 1: in clusters under the hemlocks. I got excited, started filling
Speaker 1: my bucket fast. Should have paid more attention to my surroundings.
Speaker 1: Should have noticed how quiet it had gotten. When you're
Speaker 1: focused on the ground looking for that golden color in
Speaker 1: the doff, you tune out a lot. But eventually the
Speaker 1: silence got through to me. No birds, no squirrels, even
Speaker 1: the creek seemed muted. I stood up, stretched my back,
Speaker 1: and that's when the smell hit me. You know when
Speaker 1: you open an old freezer that's been unplugged. That funk
Speaker 1: of old meat and mildew like that, but mixed with
Speaker 1: wet dog and something sharp, almost like ammonia, strong enough
Speaker 1: that I had to breathe through my mouth. I looked around,
Speaker 1: trying to figure out where it was coming from. That's
Speaker 1: when I saw the structures about thirty yards up slope,
Speaker 1: built between two huge cedars. Were these I don't know
Speaker 1: what to call them shelters. They were made of branches
Speaker 1: woven together, covered with moss and ferns. Like the He'd
Speaker 1: been there a while, but the construction was deliberate. Branches
Speaker 1: bent and twisted into art shapes, lashed together with what
Speaker 1: looked like strips of bark. There were three of them,
Speaker 1: different sizes. The biggest was maybe eight feet tall and
Speaker 1: ten feet across, big enough to stand up in if
Speaker 1: you were tall. They weren't like any hunting blinds or
Speaker 1: homeless camps I'd ever seen, too well made, two integrated
Speaker 1: into the forest. I should have left right then. Every
Speaker 1: instinct I had was screaming at me to get out,
Speaker 1: but curiosity won. I walked closer, trying to see inside
Speaker 1: the biggest structure. The entrance was low, maybe four feet high.
Speaker 1: I had to crouch to look in. The smell was
Speaker 1: overwhelming there made my eyes water. Inside was dark, but
Speaker 1: I could make out shapes, a bed of sorts made
Speaker 1: from cedar boughs, laid over a frame of sticks, and
Speaker 1: in the back, barely visible were bones, lots of bones.
Speaker 1: I backed out fast, part hammering started to turn around
Speaker 1: and froze. There were footprints around the shelters. Everywhere, different
Speaker 1: sizes but all the same shape, human like but not.
Speaker 1: The biggest ones were at least eighteen inches long. That's
Speaker 1: when I heard the whistle, long and low, coming from
Speaker 1: somewhere above me on the slope, not like any bird
Speaker 1: I knew. It held for maybe ten seconds, then stopped
Speaker 1: a few seconds later. Another whistle answered from across the valley,
Speaker 1: then a third from downstream. I ran, didn't care about
Speaker 1: my mushrooms, didn't care about staying quiet, just ran behind me.
Speaker 1: I heard crashing in the underbrush, not following me exactly,
Speaker 1: but moving parallel, keeping pace. The whistles came more frequently,
Speaker 1: seemed like they were coordinating. I'm not a young woman,
Speaker 1: and running through thick forest with a full pack isn't easy.
Speaker 1: After maybe ten minutes, I had to stop, gasping for air.
Speaker 1: The moment I stopped, everything went quiet, No more crashing,
Speaker 1: no more whistles, just my own ragged breathing. But I
Speaker 1: could feel them watching. You know that sensation like pressure
Speaker 1: on your skin, That's what it felt like. I started
Speaker 1: walking again, fast as I could manage, trying to figure
Speaker 1: out where I was. Nothing looked familiar. In my panic,
Speaker 1: I'd run the wrong direction. The sun was getting low,
Speaker 1: maybe two hours of light left. I picked a direction
Speaker 1: that seemed right and kept moving. Every hundred yards or so,
Speaker 1: I'd hear movement in the brush behind me. When I stopped,
Speaker 1: it stopped. When I moved, it moved. After an hour
Speaker 1: of this cat and mouse game, I came to a
Speaker 1: small clearing. The whistle came again, very close. I turned
Speaker 1: around slowly. At the edge of the clearing, maybe twenty
Speaker 1: five feet away. Something stood behind a big maple. I
Speaker 1: could see part of it, a shoulder and arm covered
Speaker 1: in reddish brown hair. The arm was huge, muscled like
Speaker 1: a bodybuilder's, but longer, wrong proportions for a human. It
Speaker 1: leaned out slightly and I saw part of its face,
Speaker 1: heavy brow, deep set eyes that caught the fading light.
Speaker 1: The face was almost human, but not quite, like looking
Speaker 1: at a reflection in disturbed water. It watched me for
Speaker 1: maybe five seconds, then pulled back behind the tree. I
Speaker 1: stood there, shaking, trying to decide what to do. Running
Speaker 1: seemed pointless. It was faster than me. Fighting was impossible,
Speaker 1: so I did the only thing I could think of.
Speaker 1: I took off my pack, pulled out my lunch, a sandwich,
Speaker 1: and apple I hadn't eaten and set them in the
Speaker 1: middle of the clearing. The woods went very still. I
Speaker 1: backed away, slowly, keeping my eyes on the maple tree.
Speaker 1: When I reached the far side of the clearing, I
Speaker 1: turned and walked away, not running, just walking steady. Behind me,
Speaker 1: I heard movement, something approaching the circle. I didn't look back,
Speaker 1: kept walking as the light faded, trying to stay calm.
Speaker 1: About twenty minutes later I hit an old logging road,
Speaker 1: not one I recognized, but any road was better than
Speaker 1: the forest. I followed it downhill, figuring it had to
Speaker 1: lead somewhere. Full dark. By the time I saw headlights
Speaker 1: a truck coming up the road. I waved frantically and
Speaker 1: it stopped. Young guy maybe twenty five, looked concerned, asked
Speaker 1: if I was okay, said I looked pretty shaken up.
Speaker 1: I told him I'd gotten turned around picking mushrooms, lost
Speaker 1: track of time. He offered to drive me back to
Speaker 1: my truck. Said I was lucky. This road dead ended
Speaker 1: in another mile and there wasn't another vehicle for ten miles.
Speaker 1: During the drive, I asked him about the area. He
Speaker 1: got quiet, then said his dad had logged these parts
Speaker 1: in the eighties, always told him there were places you
Speaker 1: didn't go, especially alone. Some valleys were off limits, had
Speaker 1: been as long as anyone, and remembered. We drove in
Speaker 1: silence after that. When we got to my truck, he
Speaker 1: waited until I got it started, then said something that
Speaker 1: stuck with me. He said his dad once saw something
Speaker 1: up here that made him quit logging. Never said what,
Speaker 1: but he never came back to these woods. I thanked
Speaker 1: him and drove home. Didn't go back for my mushroom bucket,
Speaker 1: didn't go back to that area ever again. But I
Speaker 1: did do some research. Found out that indigenous peoples in
Speaker 1: the area have stories going back centuries about the hairy
Speaker 1: giants and the mountains. They left offerings, stayed out of
Speaker 1: certain valleys, had rules about when and where you could go.
Speaker 1: We've forgotten those rules, but that doesn't mean they've stopped applying.
Speaker 1: I still pick mushrooms, but only in areas I know well,
Speaker 1: places close to Rhodes. I never go alone anymore, and
Speaker 1: when the woods go quiet, when that feeling of being
Speaker 1: watched gets too strong, I leave. No amount of Chanterell's
Speaker 1: is worth meeting whatever's out there. Sometimes I think about
Speaker 1: that circle of mushrooms. Wonder if it was some kind
Speaker 1: of ritual or message. Wonder what would have happened if
Speaker 1: I hadn't left food. Wonder if that was the only
Speaker 1: thing that saved me. But mostly I try not to
Speaker 1: think about it at all. Some knowledge comes with a
Speaker 1: price that's too high to pay. Some mysteries are better
Speaker 1: left unsolved. And some parts of the forest belong to
Speaker 1: things that were here long before us. And we'll be
Speaker 1: here long after we're gone. That was Janet's encounter from
Speaker 1: the Oregon Coast Range in twenty sixteen. What strikes me
Speaker 1: about her story is the deliberate nature of those structures
Speaker 1: she found, shelters woven into the landscape with a skill
Speaker 1: that suggests generations of knowledge, and that moment when she
Speaker 1: left food in the clearing, that might have been the
Speaker 1: only thing that allowed her to walk out of those woods.
Speaker 1: But sometimes these encounters happen in the most unlikely places.
Speaker 1: Our next story comes from Bill, a long haul trucker
Speaker 1: who spent over two decades driving the Dalton Highway in Alaska.
Speaker 1: If you know anything about that road, you know it's
Speaker 1: one of the most isolated stretches in North America. Five
Speaker 1: hundred miles of wilderness, ice and emptiness, the perfect place
Speaker 1: for something that doesn't want to be found. What Bill
Speaker 1: saw one September night in two thousand and eight at
Speaker 1: a remote pull off changed how he understood what shares
Speaker 1: those vast Alaskan spaces with us. The name's Bill. Been
Speaker 1: driving trucks in Alaska for twenty three years, mostly the
Speaker 1: Hall Road up to Proo Bay. Done that run hundreds
Speaker 1: of times in all kinds of weather, seen wolves, bears, moose,
Speaker 1: everything you'd expect. But what I saw in September two
Speaker 1: thousand and eight was different. I was hauling equipment down
Speaker 1: from the oil fields, heading back to Fairbanks. It's a
Speaker 1: long drive, about five hundred miles, most of it through
Speaker 1: nothing but wilderness. The Dalton Highway isn't a road for tourists.
Speaker 1: It's rough, isolated, and if you break down in the
Speaker 1: wrong spot, you could be waiting a long time for help.
Speaker 1: It was late, around two am, and I was somewhere
Speaker 1: between Coldfoot and the Yukon River. Dark as hell, no moon,
Speaker 1: just my headlights cutting through the black. I'd been driving
Speaker 1: for hours, was getting a bit drowsy, so when I
Speaker 1: saw what looked like a pull off, ahead. I decided
Speaker 1: to stop, stretch my legs, maybe catch a quick nap.
Speaker 1: The pull off was just a wide spot in the
Speaker 1: road gravel pad, may be big enough for three trucks.
Speaker 1: I pulled over, set the brakes, and climbed down from
Speaker 1: the cab. The silence up there is something else. No traffic,
Speaker 1: no planes, just the sound of your own breathing and
Speaker 1: maybe some wind in the trees. I was doing some stretches,
Speaker 1: working the kinks out of my back, when I noticed
Speaker 1: something odd. On the other side of the road. In
Speaker 1: the ditch was a caribou. Dead, looked fresh, not unusual
Speaker 1: in itself, animals get hit on the Hall road all
Speaker 1: the time. But the position was wrong. It wasn't sprawled
Speaker 1: out like a roadkill. It was arranged, laid out neat
Speaker 1: with its legs folded under it. I grabbed my flashlight,
Speaker 1: one of those big mag lights, and walked over for
Speaker 1: a better look. The cariboo had been placed there deliberately.
Speaker 1: No blood on the road, no skid marks, no damage
Speaker 1: that I could see, just dead and carefully positioned. That's
Speaker 1: when I noticed the smell, rank, like wet dog mixed
Speaker 1: with something rotting. I've smelled dead animals before, but this
Speaker 1: was different. Musker Wilder made the hair on my neck
Speaker 1: stand up. I swept the flashlight around, and that's when
Speaker 1: I saw the prints in the soft gravel on the
Speaker 1: shoulder leading from the trees to the cariboo. They looked
Speaker 1: human at first glance, five toes heel, but the size
Speaker 1: was impossible. My boot is a size twelve, and these
Speaker 1: prints made mine look like a child's. I followed the
Speaker 1: tracks with my light. They came out of the forest,
Speaker 1: went to the cariboo, then headed back into the trees
Speaker 1: on a different path, and stay tuned for more sasquatch
Speaker 1: ot to see. We'll be right back. After these messages,
Speaker 1: whatever made them walked upright and had a stride that
Speaker 1: must have been close to six feet. I should have
Speaker 1: gotten back in my truck right then, but truck drivers
Speaker 1: are curious people. You don't last in this job if
Speaker 1: you're easily spooked. So I kept looking around, trying to
Speaker 1: make sense of what I was seeing. About ten yards
Speaker 1: into the tree line, I found more evidence. Branches broken
Speaker 1: at about eight feet high, some twisted until the wood splintered,
Speaker 1: and hanging from one of the broken branches was a
Speaker 1: clump of hair, dark brown, coarse, about six inches long.
Speaker 1: I reached up to touch it, then thought better of it.
Speaker 1: That's when I heard the breathing, deep rhythmic breathing coming
Speaker 1: from somewhere in the darkness beyond my flashlight beam. Not
Speaker 1: like a bear, I know what bears sound like. This
Speaker 1: was deeper, more controlled, like bellows working. I backed up slowly,
Speaker 1: keeping the light pointed toward the sound. The breathing followed,
Speaker 1: staying just outside the range of my beam. I could
Speaker 1: hear footsteps, now heavy and deliberate, pacing me as I
Speaker 1: retreated toward the road. When I got to the gravel,
Speaker 1: I turned and walked quickly toward my truck, not running.
Speaker 1: Something told me running would be bad. The footsteps stopped
Speaker 1: at the tree line, but the breathing continued. I could
Speaker 1: feel eyes on me, that primitive sensation that says you're
Speaker 1: being watched by something that might eat you. I climbed
Speaker 1: up into my cab, locked the doors, and started the engine.
Speaker 1: As I put it in gear, my headlights swept across
Speaker 1: the trees. For just a second, I saw it standing
Speaker 1: between two spruces, maybe forty feet away. It was massive,
Speaker 1: had to be eight feet tall, probably more covered in
Speaker 1: dark hair that looked black in the lights. The body
Speaker 1: was built like a man, but way bigger, shoulders too broad, arms,
Speaker 1: too long, everything out of proportion. The face was what
Speaker 1: got me, heavy brow, deep set eyes that reflected my
Speaker 1: lights like a predator's, almost human features, but distorted like
Speaker 1: someone had grabbed a face and pulled it into a
Speaker 1: new shape. It didn't move, just stood there watching me,
Speaker 1: staring directly at me, like it was saying, I see
Speaker 1: you seeing me. I hit the gas got out of
Speaker 1: there fast as a loaded truck could go, didn't stop
Speaker 1: again until I reached the Yukon River camp, sixty miles south.
Speaker 1: When I pulled in, the guy at the fuel station
Speaker 1: took one look at me and asked what happened. I
Speaker 1: guess I looked pretty shook up. I told him I'd
Speaker 1: seen something weird up the road. He nodded like he
Speaker 1: knew exactly what I meant. Said. They get reports sometimes,
Speaker 1: truckers seeing things, hunters finding tracks, pipeline workers hearing sounds
Speaker 1: they can't explain. Unofficially, everyone knows there's something out there.
Speaker 1: Officially it's always bears or wool or over active imaginations.
Speaker 1: He told me, I was lucky. Usually they stay away
Speaker 1: from the road, keep to the deep wilderness, but sometimes,
Speaker 1: especially in fall, when they're moving around more, they come close.
Speaker 1: The Cariboo was probably a territorial marker, a way of
Speaker 1: saying this is their area. I finished the run to Fairbanks,
Speaker 1: filed my paperwork, went home, but I couldn't stop thinking
Speaker 1: about what I'd seen. Started asking around quiet like found
Speaker 1: out there's a whole history of sidings up there. Native
Speaker 1: peoples have stories going back forever. The pipeline workers in
Speaker 1: the seventies had encounters. They were told not to report.
Speaker 1: Other truckers had seen things, but kept quiet to avoid
Speaker 1: being labeled crazy. One old timer told me something interesting.
Speaker 1: He said, they're migratory, following the Cariboo herds spring and fall,
Speaker 1: they moved through certain areas. The Hall Road cut right
Speaker 1: through one of their travel routes. That's why most sidings
Speaker 1: happened in September and April. He also said they're smart,
Speaker 1: they know about trucks. No, we're just passing through. As
Speaker 1: long as we don't stop too long in their territory,
Speaker 1: they leave us alone. But sometimes they get curious, want
Speaker 1: a closer look. That's what happened to me, I stopped
Speaker 1: in the wrong place at the wrong time, and one
Speaker 1: came to investigate. I've done that run probably one hundred
Speaker 1: times since then, never stopped at that pull off again,
Speaker 1: never seen another one. But sometimes, especially on those dark
Speaker 1: September nights, I'll see something in the trees, a shape
Speaker 1: that's too tall, movement that's too fluid. I keep driving,
Speaker 1: don't even slow down. Other truckers have their own stories,
Speaker 1: rocks thrown at trucks, woodpiles arranged in patterns, sounds that
Speaker 1: don't match any known animal. We all know something's out there,
Speaker 1: but it's an unspoken rule. You don't report it, you
Speaker 1: don't make a big deal about it. You just drive
Speaker 1: and let them have their space. Because here's the thing.
Speaker 1: They were there first, long before the pipeline, before the road,
Speaker 1: before any of us. We're the ones passing through their territory,
Speaker 1: and as long as we keep moving, they seem content
Speaker 1: to let us pass. But I'll never forget that face
Speaker 1: in my headlights, the intelligence in those eyes, the way
Speaker 1: it stared directly at me, like it was acknowledging our
Speaker 1: brief moment of contact. It changed how I see the
Speaker 1: wilderness up there, changed how I understand what shares this
Speaker 1: land with us. Now, when I drive that stretch of road,
Speaker 1: I'm more careful. I don't stop unless I absolutely have to.
Speaker 1: And when the darkness presses in and the trees seem
Speaker 1: to close around the road, I remember that we're not
Speaker 1: alone out there, never have been, never will be. Some
Speaker 1: things are meant to stay hidden, some boundaries aren't meant
Speaker 1: to be crossed, and some mysteries are better left unsolved.
Speaker 1: That's what I learned that night on the Dalton Highway.
Speaker 1: That's what I remember every time I make that run.
Speaker 1: The wilderness up there is vast empty in a way
Speaker 1: most people can't imagine. Plenty of room for things we
Speaker 1: don't understand, plenty of space for creatures that know how
Speaker 1: to stay hidden when they want to. I'm retiring next year.
Speaker 1: Thirty years of driving these roads is enough. Part of
Speaker 1: me will miss it, the solitude, the beauty, the challenge.
Speaker 1: But I won't miss those night runs through that particular stretch.
Speaker 1: Won't miss the feeling of being watched from the darkness
Speaker 1: beyond my lights. Because they're out there, whatever they are,
Speaker 1: they're real, and the best thing we can do is
Speaker 1: give them their space and hope they continue to give
Speaker 1: us hours. Bill's encounter on the Dalton Highway shows us
Speaker 1: something important. These beings are everywhere, from the Oregon forests
Speaker 1: to the Alaskan tundra. That caribou arranged so carefully, those
Speaker 1: massive footprints in the gravel, and that moment when Bill's
Speaker 1: headlights caught it watching him. It's the intelligence behind these
Speaker 1: actions that makes you realize we're dealing with something far
Speaker 1: more complex than any known animal, Which brings me to
Speaker 1: Rachel's story. She was a Forest Service crew leader in Montana,
Speaker 1: someone who'd spent more nights in the back country than
Speaker 1: most people spend in their own beds. In July twenty twelve,
Speaker 1: she and her crew helicoptered into the Cellway bitter Root
Speaker 1: Wilderness for what should have been a routine week of
Speaker 1: trail maintenance. But when something started visiting their camp at night,
Speaker 1: examining their gear, rearranging their equipment, and making sounds that
Speaker 1: seemed almost like language, Rachel realized they'd set up camp
Speaker 1: in someone else's territory. I worked for the Forest Service
Speaker 1: for twelve years, mostly in the Bitterroot National Forest along
Speaker 1: the Montana Idaho border. Did everything from trail maintenance to
Speaker 1: fire prevention. Spent more nights in the back country than
Speaker 1: I did in my own bed. The name's Rachel, and
Speaker 1: what happened in July twenty twelve made me rethink everything
Speaker 1: I thought I knew about those mountains. I was thirty four,
Speaker 1: then crew leader for a trail maintenance team. We were
Speaker 1: working on a section of trail about fifteen miles from
Speaker 1: the nearest road way back in the Cellway bitter Root Wilderness.
Speaker 1: It's rough country, steep terrain, thick forest, the kind of
Speaker 1: place where you can walk for days without seeing another human.
Speaker 1: There were four of us on the crew, me, Jake, Marcus,
Speaker 1: and Annie, all experienced backcountry workers. We'd helicopter in on
Speaker 1: Monday with our gear, work all week, clearing deadfall and
Speaker 1: repairing washouts, then hike out Friday. It was hard work
Speaker 1: but satisfying, and I loved being that far from civilization.
Speaker 1: This particular week, we set up base camp near a
Speaker 1: small alpine lake, beautiful spot surrounded by lodge pole pines,
Speaker 1: peaks rising all around. We'd work this area before, knew
Speaker 1: it well or thought we did. Tuesday night, things got weird.
Speaker 1: We were sitting around after dinner planning the next day's
Speaker 1: work when Jake noticed something. He'd hung his path from
Speaker 1: a tree about thirty feet from camp standard bear precaution,
Speaker 1: but the pack was swaying. No wind, no animals visible,
Speaker 1: but the pack was moving like something was examining it.
Speaker 1: We all turned our headlamps that direction. The pack stopped
Speaker 1: moving immediately. Jake walked over to check it out, found
Speaker 1: nothing disturbed, but when he came back he was quiet.
Speaker 1: Said there were prints around the tree, big ones. I
Speaker 1: went to look in the soft duff beneath the tree
Speaker 1: were several impressions, not clear prints, but depressions where something
Speaker 1: heavy had stood. Whatever made them had been tall enough
Speaker 1: to reach Jake's pack without jumping. It was hung a
Speaker 1: good ten feet up. We laughed it off, made jokes
Speaker 1: about Jake seeing things, but that night I set up
Speaker 1: the trail cameras we used for wildlife monitoring, just in
Speaker 1: case Wednesday was normal. We worked hard, cleared about a
Speaker 1: mile of trail, but coming back to camp that evening
Speaker 1: we all noticed the smell hit us about one hundred
Speaker 1: yards out musky wild like a bare den, but stronger,
Speaker 1: and he said it smelled like the primate house at
Speaker 1: the zoo. But concentrated. The smell got stronger as we
Speaker 1: entered camp. Our tents were fine, gear undisturbed, but something
Speaker 1: had been there. The fire ring was dismantled, rocks moved
Speaker 1: into a different pattern, not scattered, deliberately rearranged into a
Speaker 1: rough circle. About ten feet across. Marcus found more tracks.
Speaker 1: These were clearer, pressed into a muddy spot near the
Speaker 1: lake shore. Human shaped but huge. I put my boot
Speaker 1: next to one for comparison. The track was nearly twice
Speaker 1: as long, five toes, clearly visible, ball of foot heel,
Speaker 1: even what looked like an arch, but the proportions were
Speaker 1: off the big toe, more separated than a humans would be.
Speaker 1: I checked the trail. Cameras should have had images of
Speaker 1: whatever visited our camp, but both cameras were turned to
Speaker 1: face the treees not knocked down or damaged, carefully rotated
Speaker 1: on their mounts to point away from camp. Whatever did
Speaker 1: it understood what the cameras were for. That night, we
Speaker 1: stayed up late, kept the fire burning high. Around midnight,
Speaker 1: the whistling started, long, sustained notes that seemed to come
Speaker 1: from different directions, not like any bird or animal. I
Speaker 1: knew the notes would overlap harmonize, almost like communication. Jake
Speaker 1: wanted to investigate, but I shut that down. We were
Speaker 1: fifteen miles from help, no radio contact, no cell service,
Speaker 1: whatever was out there, we weren't equipped to deal with it.
Speaker 1: We agreed to pack up at first light, hike out early,
Speaker 1: but they weren't done with us. Around three am, something
Speaker 1: entered camp. We were all in our tents, but I
Speaker 1: was awake, listening footsteps, heavy but careful, moving between the tents.
Speaker 1: It stopped at each one, and I could hear breathing,
Speaker 1: deep controlled breathing, like it was smelling us. When it
Speaker 1: got to my tent, I could see the shadow through
Speaker 1: the fabric, massive, probably seven feet tall, maybe more. It
Speaker 1: pressed against the tent wall gently, the fabric bowing inward.
Speaker 1: I held my breath, hand on my bare spray, trying
Speaker 1: not to move. Then it made a sound I'll never forget.
Speaker 1: Started as a low rumble, almost below the range of hearing,
Speaker 1: rose into something between a hum and a growl. But
Speaker 1: there was a pattern to it, a rhythm. It sounded
Speaker 1: like a language, like it was trying to speak. The
Speaker 1: sound went on for maybe thirty seconds, then the shadow
Speaker 1: moved away. I heard it at the other tents, making
Speaker 1: similar sounds, different tones for each tent, like it was
Speaker 1: addressing us individually. The footsteps moved away from camp. I
Speaker 1: waited another hour before carefully unzipping my tent and looking out.
Speaker 1: The others were doing the same. We all looked scared,
Speaker 1: but also amazed. We'd all heard it, all felt it.
Speaker 1: Examining our tents by flashlight, we found more evidence. Tracks everywhere,
Speaker 1: circling the camp multiple times, but also strange arrangements pine
Speaker 1: cones placed in lines, sticks balanced impossibly on end, rocks
Speaker 1: stacked in small cairns. It looked like art, or messages,
Speaker 1: or something we couldn't understand. We packed up in the dark.
Speaker 1: We're on the trail by five am, but we weren't alone.
Speaker 1: As we hiked out, we could hear movement in the
Speaker 1: forest parallel to us, sometimes ahead, sometimes behind, always just
Speaker 1: out of sight. When we stopped, it stopped when we moved.
Speaker 1: It moved about five miles from the trailhead. We found
Speaker 1: a final message. In the middle of the trail was
Speaker 1: an arrangement of objects, stones in a circle, feathers in
Speaker 1: the center, and spanning across the trail, a barrier made
Speaker 1: of crossed branches. It wasn't meant to stop us. We
Speaker 1: could easily step over it. It felt more like a
Speaker 1: boundary marker, a line we were crossing. We carefully moved
Speaker 1: the branches aside and continued the feeling of being watched
Speaker 1: faded after that, like we'd passed out of their territory.
Speaker 1: Made it to the trailhead by noon. Exhausted and shaken,
Speaker 1: I filed my report, included everything. My supervisor read it,
Speaker 1: locked it in his desk, told me to write another
Speaker 1: version that mentioned aggressive bear activity as the reason we
Speaker 1: left early. That's what went in the official file. But
Speaker 1: he also told me something interesting. Said there had been
Speaker 1: similar reports from that area going back decades, always the
Speaker 1: same pattern, curious approach, nonviolent contact, apparent attempts at communication.
Speaker 1: The Forest Service unofficially designated certain areas as culturally sensitive,
Speaker 1: which meant crews were discouraged from working there. The area
Speaker 1: we'd been in. It was on the list, but somebody
Speaker 1: had forgotten to update the current mapp apps and stay
Speaker 1: tuned for more sasquatch ot to see We'll be right back.
Speaker 1: After these messages, I went back to the bitter Root
Speaker 1: many times after that, but never to that particular Valley.
Speaker 1: Other crew leaders reported similar experiences, equipment carefully examined, objects rearranged,
Speaker 1: those strange vocalizations, always in the same general areas, always
Speaker 1: following the same pattern. What struck me most was the
Speaker 1: intelligence behind it all. The way they turned our cameras,
Speaker 1: the careful examination of our gear. These weren't the actions
Speaker 1: of animals. This was curiosity, maybe even an attempt at contact.
Speaker 1: I left the Forest Service in twenty eighteen, moved to Missoula,
Speaker 1: got a desk job. But I still think about that night,
Speaker 1: about the shadow at my tent, the sounds it made.
Speaker 1: Was it trying to communicate? What did those arrangements mean?
Speaker 1: What would have happened if we'd stayed. Sometimes I research
Speaker 1: other encounters, looking for patterns. The whistling seems common, and
Speaker 1: the object arrangements. People report similar vocalizations, like attempted speech.
Speaker 1: It makes me wonder if they're trying to bridge the
Speaker 1: gap between us. But we're too different, too afraid to understand.
Speaker 1: I keep in touch with Annie, she's still with the
Speaker 1: Forest Service, working in Washington now. She told me she's
Speaker 1: heard similar stories from Creus. There, same patterns, same behaviors,
Speaker 1: Like there's a parallel society and the deep wilderness. One
Speaker 1: that watches us, studies us, maybe even tries to communicate,
Speaker 1: but we run. We always run, too scared to stay
Speaker 1: and see what they want. Two locked into our view
Speaker 1: of the world to accept that we might share it
Speaker 1: with something else, something intelligent, something that might have things
Speaker 1: to teach us, if we could just overcome our fear.
Speaker 1: That's what haunts me. Not the fear I felt that night,
Speaker 1: but the missed opportun tunity, the chance to make contact
Speaker 1: with something extraordinary, and I ran away. We all did,
Speaker 1: just like everyone before us and probably everyone after. They're
Speaker 1: still out there, still watching, still trying, and we're still running,
Speaker 1: still refusing to see what's right in front of us.
Speaker 1: Maybe someday someone will be brave enough to stay, to
Speaker 1: try to understand. But it wasn't me, and I'll always
Speaker 1: wonder what might have been. Rachel's experience with her crew
Speaker 1: shows us something fascinating. These beings don't just observe us
Speaker 1: from a distance. They study us, try to understand our technology,
Speaker 1: maybe even attempt to communicate. Those vocalizations at each tent,
Speaker 1: different for each person, suggest a level of sophistication. We're
Speaker 1: only beginning to grasp, but sometimes the communication goes beyond
Speaker 1: sounds and observations. Sometimes they leave things behind. That's what
Speaker 1: happened to Tom, a bow hunter from Michigan's Upper Peninsula.
Speaker 1: He'd been hunting those woods for twenty years, knew every
Speaker 1: trail and clearing, but during the twenty fourteen season, he
Speaker 1: became the recipient of gifts that would challenge his understanding
Speaker 1: of the natural world. My name's Tom, and I've been
Speaker 1: bow hunting the Upper Peninsula for over twenty years. I
Speaker 1: know the woods up there like most people know their neighborhoods,
Speaker 1: every trail, every clearing, every place the big bucks liked
Speaker 1: to bed down. But what happened during the twenty fourteen
Speaker 1: season changed everything for me. It was early November peak rut,
Speaker 1: and I was hunting state land near the Hiawatha National Forest.
Speaker 1: I'd been scouting this area all summer, had three good
Speaker 1: stands set up along travel corridors. The spot was about
Speaker 1: eight miles from the nearest paved road, accessed by an
Speaker 1: old two track that most people didn't know about. I
Speaker 1: went in on a Tuesday, planning to hunt through the weekend.
Speaker 1: Set up my camp about a half mile from my
Speaker 1: best stand, small tent, minimal gear, trying to keep my
Speaker 1: scent and noise down. I'd hunted this way for years, alone,
Speaker 1: deep in the woods where the pressure from other hunters
Speaker 1: pushed the deer. Wednesday morning was perfect, cold, still, frost
Speaker 1: on everything. I was in my stand an hour before
Speaker 1: light bow ready watching the woods wake up. Around eight
Speaker 1: that morning, I had two doughs pass within twenty yards,
Speaker 1: then a small buck. I let them go, waiting for
Speaker 1: something bigger. That's when things got strange. The woods went
Speaker 1: completely silent, not normal, quiet, dead silent. The squirrels stopped chattering,
Speaker 1: birds stopped moving, Even the breeze seemed to die. In
Speaker 1: twenty years of hunting, I'd never experienced anything like it.
Speaker 1: Movement caught my eye about sixty yards out, something big
Speaker 1: walking through the thick stuff. I raised my binoculars, trying
Speaker 1: to get a clear look. What I saw made no sense.
Speaker 1: It was walking upright, had to be seven feet tall,
Speaker 1: maybe more, covered in dark brown hair except for the face.
Speaker 1: The face is what got me. Heavy features, pronounced brow
Speaker 1: but unmistakably intelligent eyes. It moved through the thick brush
Speaker 1: like it wasn't even there branches that would stop me. Cold,
Speaker 1: barely slowing it down. I watched it for maybe ten
Speaker 1: seconds before it stopped, turned its head and looked straight
Speaker 1: at me, not past me or through me, at me,
Speaker 1: like it had known I was there all along. We
Speaker 1: stared at each other. Then it took two steps backward
Speaker 1: and vanished into the brush. No sound, no snapping branches,
Speaker 1: just gone. I stayed in that stand for another hour, shaking,
Speaker 1: trying to process what I'd seen. Finally climbed down, went
Speaker 1: back to camp. Spent the rest of the day doubting myself,
Speaker 1: trying to rationalize it. Maybe someone in a suit, maybe
Speaker 1: a bear standing upright. Maybe exhaustion playing tricks that night
Speaker 1: convinced me otherwise. I was in my tent, reading by
Speaker 1: headlamp when something walked into camp. Heavy footsteps, no attempt
Speaker 1: at stealth. It circled my tent twice, breathing loud enough
Speaker 1: that I could hear it clearly. The smell was overwhelming,
Speaker 1: even through the tent fabric. It stopped at my pack,
Speaker 1: which I'd hung from a tree branch. I heard rustling
Speaker 1: zippers opening, not frantic like a bear would be, but careful, methodical.
Speaker 1: I lay there, too, terrified to move, listening to it
Speaker 1: go through my things. After about ten minutes, the sound stopped,
Speaker 1: the footsteps moved away from camp. I waited another hour
Speaker 1: before looking out. My pack was on the ground, contents
Speaker 1: laid out in neat rows, food in one line, clothes
Speaker 1: in another, hunting gear in a third. Nothing damaged, nothing taken,
Speaker 1: just examined. Hindsight is always twenty twenty. But I know
Speaker 1: now that I should have packed up right then, in
Speaker 1: the dark and got now. But morning was only a
Speaker 1: few hours away, and the thought of stumbling through eight
Speaker 1: miles of dark forest seemed worse than staying put. I
Speaker 1: rebuilt my fire, kept it burning high, and sat up
Speaker 1: the rest of the night with my bow across my lap.
Speaker 1: Just before dawn, I heard whistling from the ridge above
Speaker 1: my camp, long complex notes that seemed to have a pattern.
Speaker 1: Another whistle answered from across the valley, then a third
Speaker 1: from downstream. They were communicating, calling to each other. As
Speaker 1: soon as it was light enough to see, I packed up.
Speaker 1: As I was breaking down my tent, I found footprints everywhere,
Speaker 1: different sizes, but all the same shape. The biggest were
Speaker 1: at least sixteen inches long, with clear tow impressions. The
Speaker 1: hike out was the longest eight miles of my life.
Speaker 1: I felt watched the whole way. About halfway I found
Speaker 1: a dead deer in the trail, fresh killed, neck twisted,
Speaker 1: laid out neat with its legs folded under. I walked
Speaker 1: around it, didn't touch it, made it to my truck,
Speaker 1: drove straight home to Marquette. Didn't tell anyone what happened
Speaker 1: for weeks. Who would believe me? But I started researching.
Speaker 1: Found online forms where people shared similar experiences. The patterns
Speaker 1: were consistent, the examination of gear, the whistling communication. One
Speaker 1: detail that kept coming up was the intelligence in those
Speaker 1: eyes and its actions. It all pointed to something with
Speaker 1: human level intelligence, but completely different priorities and ways of thinking.
Speaker 1: I went back to that area once the following summer,
Speaker 1: not to hunt, just to see found what might have
Speaker 1: been footprints in a muddy spot, but the feeling of
Speaker 1: being watched was so intense I only stayed an hour.
Speaker 1: Talked to some old timers at the bar, carefully indirectly.
Speaker 1: One guy must have been eighty, told me his grandfather
Speaker 1: had stories, said the ojibwe knew about them, called them
Speaker 1: names I couldn't pronounce, said they'd always been here, had
Speaker 1: their own territories, their own ways. The smart thing was
Speaker 1: to respect those boundaries. He also said something that stuck
Speaker 1: with me. He said, they're curious about us, but we're
Speaker 1: maybe too different to really communicate, like trying to talk
Speaker 1: to someone from another planet. The objects they leave might
Speaker 1: be messages, but we don't have the context to understand them.
Speaker 1: I still hunt, but not like before. I stick to
Speaker 1: areas closer to Rhodes, places with more human activity. I
Speaker 1: don't go in alone anymore. And when I feel that
Speaker 1: sensation of being watched, when the woods go silent in
Speaker 1: that particular way, I leave. No deer is worth encountering
Speaker 1: whatever's out there. Other hunters report similar experiences, gear examined
Speaker 1: objects left behind that distinctive whistling. Most don't talk about
Speaker 1: it publicly, but in quiet conversations after a few beers,
Speaker 1: the stories come out. We all know something's there, we
Speaker 1: just don't know what to do about it. Maybe that's
Speaker 1: for the best. Maybe some boundaries shouldn't be crossed. Maybe
Speaker 1: they have their world and we have hours, and the
Speaker 1: occasional overlap is as close as we should get. But sometimes,
Speaker 1: studying those patterns, I wonder what we're missing. What knowledge
Speaker 1: or perspective or understanding we're too afraid to gain. That's
Speaker 1: where we leave Tom's story. But the Upper Peninsula Forest
Speaker 1: aren't the only places where these encounters happen. Sometimes it
Speaker 1: takes extreme circumstances, moments when nature shows its most destructive face,
Speaker 1: for these beings to reveal themselves. Mguil, a former hot
Speaker 1: Shot Crew firefighter, discovered this truth in the smoke and
Speaker 1: chaos of California's worst wildfire season. The name's Mgil, and
Speaker 1: I spent eight years on a hot shot crew fighting
Speaker 1: wildfires across the Western US. Saw a lot of things
Speaker 1: in those years, fire behavior that didn't make sense, landscapes
Speaker 1: transformed in minutes, the raw power of nature unleashed. But
Speaker 1: what we encountered during the Creek Fire in September twenty
Speaker 1: twenty was something else Entirely. We were stationed in the
Speaker 1: Sierra National Forest working to contain a section of the
Speaker 1: fire northeast of Shaver Lake. It had been burning for days,
Speaker 1: was already massive, and we were cutting line in steep
Speaker 1: terrain trying to stop it from spreading further east. My
Speaker 1: crew of twenty was working a remote section helicopter access only,
Speaker 1: camping rough and working eighteen hour days. On our third
Speaker 1: night in that particular spot, things got weird. We'd made
Speaker 1: camp on a ridge line, good defensive position. If the
Speaker 1: fire shifted. Around two am, our lookout woke everyone up,
Speaker 1: not because of fire, because of lights. Down in the
Speaker 1: valley below us, where there should have been nothing but
Speaker 1: dark forest. Were lights moving through the trees. Not flashlights.
Speaker 1: These were different amber, colored almost like flames, but steady,
Speaker 1: moving in patterns that made no sense, flustered together, separate
Speaker 1: form lines, then scatter again. At first we thought it
Speaker 1: might be another crew, but nobody was supposed to be
Speaker 1: in that area. It was too dangerous, too close to
Speaker 1: active fire. Our crew boss, Danny, tried to raise them
Speaker 1: on the radio.
Speaker 2: Nothing.
Speaker 1: The lights continued for about an hour, then faded out
Speaker 1: one by one. Next morning we repelled down to check
Speaker 1: it out. What we found made no sense. In a
Speaker 1: meadow where the lights had been centered, the grass was
Speaker 1: bent in perfect circles, not burned, not trampled, bent like
Speaker 1: something had pressed it down gently. There were seven circles,
Speaker 1: each about ten feet across, arranged in a pattern that
Speaker 1: looked almost deliberate. But that wasn't the strangest part. In
Speaker 1: the center of each circle were objects stones arranged in
Speaker 1: small pyramids, feathers stuck in the ground, and in one
Speaker 1: a piece of carved wood that looked like it had
Speaker 1: been shaped by fire. The carving showed wavy lines that
Speaker 1: could have been flames, or water or something else. Jose,
Speaker 1: one of our guys, found tracks at the edge of
Speaker 1: the meadow. We all gathered around to look human shaped,
Speaker 1: but massive, pressed deep into the ash and dirt. The
Speaker 1: stride length was impossible. Whoever made these was taking steps
Speaker 1: six feet long without running. We documented everything, took photos,
Speaker 1: but didn't report it. You don't report stuff like this
Speaker 1: unless you want to get drug tested and possibly pulled
Speaker 1: off the line. We had work to do, fire to fight,
Speaker 1: but we all felt different about that. Valley kept looking
Speaker 1: down there, wondering. Two nights later, the fire made a
Speaker 1: run at our position. We had to evacuate fast helicopter
Speaker 1: extraction in dangerous conditions. As we were loading up, I
Speaker 1: looked back and saw them three figures standing at the
Speaker 1: edge of the fire line, just inside the smoke. They
Speaker 1: were huge, had to be seven or eight feet tall,
Speaker 1: covered in dark hair that looked reddish in the firelight.
Speaker 1: They were watching us, standing perfectly still despite the heat
Speaker 1: and smoke that should have driven any living thing away.
Speaker 1: Then all three turned and walked into the burning forest,
Speaker 1: not running from the fire, walking into it. They disappeared
Speaker 1: in the smoke, and that was the last we saw
Speaker 1: of them. But when we returned to that area a
Speaker 1: week later, after the fire had passed through, we found
Speaker 1: something impossible. In that same meadow where we'd found the
Speaker 1: circles where everything should have been burned to ash was
Speaker 1: an untouched area, perfect circle about thirty feet across where
Speaker 1: the fire had burned around but not through. In the
Speaker 1: center were those same stone pyramids, somehow surviving temperatures that
Speaker 1: melted aluminum and cracked rocks. Danny had been fighting fires
Speaker 1: for twenty years. He stood in that unburned circle looking
Speaker 1: at the stone pyramids and just shook his head. Said
Speaker 1: he'd seen fire do unexplainable things before, but this was different.
Speaker 1: This was intentional. Something had protected this spot. And stay
Speaker 1: tuned for more Sasquatch ott to see, we'll be right back.
Speaker 1: After these messages, we worked that area for another two weeks,
Speaker 1: never saw the figures again, but we found more evidence
Speaker 1: tracks in ash that should have been wind scattered trees
Speaker 1: that fell in patterns that made no sense, And one
Speaker 1: night we all heard it, a deep, resonant call that
Speaker 1: echoed across the burned landscape, nothing like any animal we knew.
Speaker 1: It sounded almost mournful, like mourning for the burned forest.
Speaker 1: After the Creek fire was contained, some of us started talking,
Speaker 1: comparing notes from other fires. Turns out there were similar
Speaker 1: stories going back years. Firefighters seeing large figures near fire lines,
Speaker 1: finding inexplicable unburned areas, hearing calls that didn't match any
Speaker 1: known wildlife, always in remote areas, always during major fires.
Speaker 1: One theory was that they have some relationship with fire
Speaker 1: we don't understand. Maybe they use it, maybe they protect
Speaker 1: certain areas from it. Those unburned circles could be important
Speaker 1: to them somehow, sacred sights, gathering places, something we can't comprehend.
Speaker 1: I left firefighting last year, moved to the coast, got
Speaker 1: a job that doesn't involve risking my life every summer.
Speaker 1: But I still think about what we saw. Those figures
Speaker 1: standing at the edge of the fire, walking into flames
Speaker 1: that would kill anything else. The protected circle with its
Speaker 1: stone monuments. Were they trying to tell us? Something, show
Speaker 1: us something about fire, about the forest, about the relationship
Speaker 1: between things, or were they just protecting what was theirs,
Speaker 1: keeping their sacred places safe from our disasters. I kept
Speaker 1: one of those carved pieces of wood. It sits on
Speaker 1: my desk, now black from fire, but intact. The patterns
Speaker 1: seemed to shift in different lights. Sometimes they look like lames,
Speaker 1: sometimes like water, sometimes like something else, entirely a message
Speaker 1: I can't read from beings I can't understand. But here's
Speaker 1: what stays with me. They didn't run from the fire.
Speaker 1: They walked into it with purpose, like they knew something
Speaker 1: we didn't like. They had some power or knowledge that
Speaker 1: made them unafraid of something that terrifies every other living thing.
Speaker 1: Makes you wonder what else they know that we don't,
Speaker 1: What other relationships with nature they might have that we
Speaker 1: can't perceive. We think we understand the forest, understand fire,
Speaker 1: understand the natural world. But maybe we're just scratching the surface.
Speaker 1: Maybe there are older, deeper ways of knowing that we've
Speaker 1: lost or never had. They're out there in those forests,
Speaker 1: even the burned ones, especially the burned ones, moving through
Speaker 1: landscapes we've written off, is destroyed, finding life and meaning
Speaker 1: where we see only devastation, protecting what matters to them
Speaker 1: in ways we can't understand, and sometimes, in the smoke
Speaker 1: and chaos of a major fire, they show themselves just
Speaker 1: for a moment, just long enough to remind us that
Speaker 1: we don't know everything, that the world is stranger and
Speaker 1: more complex than our training and equipment and scientific understanding
Speaker 1: can explain. That's what I learned fighting fires in the
Speaker 1: Sierra Nevada, not just about fire behavior or forest ecology,
Speaker 1: but about the limits of what we know, about the
Speaker 1: other intelligences that share this world with us, and about
Speaker 1: the humility that comes from realizing you're not the only
Speaker 1: one who calls these forests home. Miguel keeps that fire
Speaker 1: carved piece of wood on his desk now it's patterns
Speaker 1: shifting between flame and water in the changing light. His
Speaker 1: story raises profound questions about these beings relationship with the
Speaker 1: natural world, a relationship that suggests knowledge and abilities we
Speaker 1: don't possess. But what happens when those whose job it
Speaker 1: is to protect our wilderness areas come face to face
Speaker 1: with evidence that something else has been protecting these lands
Speaker 1: far longer than we have. Sharon A. Veteran backcountry ranger
Speaker 1: in the Great Smoky Mountains learned that some boundaries are
Speaker 1: older than the park service itself. My name is Sharon,
Speaker 1: and I worked as a backcountry ranger in Great Smoky
Speaker 1: Mountains National Park for fifteen years. Retired early after what
Speaker 1: happened in October twenty eighteen. Not because I was scared,
Speaker 1: but because it made me realize I'd been willfully blind
Speaker 1: to something that had been there all along. I was
Speaker 1: doing a solo patrol in the southeastern section of the park,
Speaker 1: checking permits and campsites along the Appalachian Trail. It was
Speaker 1: late in the season. Most of the through hikers had
Speaker 1: already passed, so the backcountry was pretty empty. I liked
Speaker 1: it that way, peaceful, just me and the mountains. I'd
Speaker 1: planned to stay out four nights, covering about forty miles
Speaker 1: of trail. The first two days were routine checked, a
Speaker 1: few campsites, picked up some trash, enjoyed the fall colors.
Speaker 1: On the third day, I decided to investigate some reports
Speaker 1: of illegal camping off trail. Hikers had mentioned seeing fire
Speaker 1: rings in areas where camping wasn't permitted about a mile
Speaker 1: off the At following game trails in my GPS. I
Speaker 1: found something strange, not illegal camp sites, something else. Trees
Speaker 1: bent and woven together to form shelters, not like the
Speaker 1: debris huts survival enthusiasts make. These were sophisticated, using living
Speaker 1: trees trained into dome shapes and covered with woven branches
Speaker 1: and moss. There were four structures in a rough semicircle
Speaker 1: facing a central area where the ground was worn smooth,
Speaker 1: no fire ring, but there were other signs of use.
Speaker 1: Flat stones arranged like seats, worn paths between the structures,
Speaker 1: and most unsettling bones not scattered like animal kills, arranged
Speaker 1: skulls lined up by size, leg bones stacked like firewood.
Speaker 1: I took photos, made notes, tried to make sense of it.
Speaker 1: The construction was too elaborate for homeless camps, too permanent
Speaker 1: for hikers, and the location didn't make sense. No water
Speaker 1: source nearby, difficult terrain to reach, no view or any
Speaker 1: of the things people usually look for in a campsite.
Speaker 1: I was examining one of the structures more closely when
Speaker 1: I smelled it that thick animal musk everyone describes, like bear,
Speaker 1: but stronger, mixed with something almost sweet like rotting fruit.
Speaker 1: I'd smelled bear plenty of times, and this wasn't bear.
Speaker 1: My training kicked in. I backed away, slowly, hand on
Speaker 1: my radio, though I knew I was in a dead
Speaker 1: zone with no reception. That's when I saw the first
Speaker 1: print in a patch of bare earth near one of
Speaker 1: the shelters, A footprint that made my stomach drop human
Speaker 1: shaped but huge. I documented it quickly, took measurements and photos,
Speaker 1: tried to keep my hand steady. The print was fresh,
Speaker 1: edges still sharp in the damp soil. Whatever made it
Speaker 1: had been here recently, maybe was still here. The forest
Speaker 1: had gone quiet in that way that makes every ranger nervous.
Speaker 1: No birds, no squirrels, even the breeze had died. I
Speaker 1: made the decision to leave, head back to the trail,
Speaker 1: but as I turned to go, I saw something that
Speaker 1: stopped me cold. Hanging from a tree branch about ten
Speaker 1: feet up was my hat, the one I'd been wearing,
Speaker 1: the one I hadn't noticed falling off. But I hadn't
Speaker 1: walked under that branch. I'd remember having to duck under
Speaker 1: something that low. Someone had taken it off my head
Speaker 1: without me noticing, and hung it there. I reached up
Speaker 1: for it couldn't get close. I'm five feet eight inches
Speaker 1: and couldn't reach it even jumping. Whatever hung it there
Speaker 1: was tall, very tall. That's when the whistling started, low
Speaker 1: and melodious, almost like a tune. It came from upslope,
Speaker 1: maybe fifty yards away. Another whip answered from my left,
Speaker 1: a third from behind me. I was surrounded. I did
Speaker 1: the only thing I could think of. I spoke out loud,
Speaker 1: said I was a ranger, that I didn't mean any harm,
Speaker 1: that I was leaving. Felt foolish talking to the forest,
Speaker 1: but what else could I do. The whistling stopped. The
Speaker 1: silence stretched out for maybe a minute. Then one of
Speaker 1: them showed itself, just briefly, stepping partially out from behind
Speaker 1: a massive oak about thirty yards away. Even partially visible,
Speaker 1: the size was staggering. Dark hair covered its body, but
Speaker 1: the face was visible in the dappled sunlight, heavy features,
Speaker 1: deep set eyes that were definitely watching me. Intelligence in
Speaker 1: those eyes, not animal cunning, but real intelligence. I blinked
Speaker 1: and it was gone. No sound, no movement I could track,
Speaker 1: just gone. But the message seemed clear, don't go that way.
Speaker 1: I backed up, chose a different route. As I moved
Speaker 1: I heard them following, not pursuing, escorting. When I'd veer
Speaker 1: too far left or right, a whistle would come from
Speaker 1: that direction. They were hurting me, keeping me on a
Speaker 1: specific path. It took me an hour to get back
Speaker 1: to the main trail, the longest hour of my life.
Speaker 1: When I finally stepped onto the familiar tread of the
Speaker 1: at the feeling of being watched faded. I hiked out
Speaker 1: that day, didn't stop until I reached my vehicle at
Speaker 1: Klingman's Dome. But here's what really messed with me. When
Speaker 1: I reviewed my GPS track later, I saw that the
Speaker 1: path they'd herded me on avoided three areas. I went
Speaker 1: back to the maps checked those spots. All three were
Speaker 1: locations of recent missing hiker reports, people who'd gone off
Speaker 1: trail and never came back. Had they been protecting me,
Speaker 1: warning me away from dangerous areas, or protecting something of
Speaker 1: theirs I was getting too close to. I reported the structures,
Speaker 1: but not the encounter said I'd found what looked like
Speaker 1: old hunting blinds, possibly historical. A team went to investigate
Speaker 1: two weeks later, found nothing. The structures were gone, not destroyed, disassembled,
Speaker 1: The bones were moved the bent trees somehow straightened like
Speaker 1: it had never been there. But I knew better, and
Speaker 1: once I started looking, really looking, I found signs everywhere,
Speaker 1: prints in places they shouldn't be, Trees bent in ways
Speaker 1: that weren't natural, stones stacked in patterns, things I'd been
Speaker 1: walking past for years without seeing. I talked to other
Speaker 1: rangers carefully found out there was an unofficial network of
Speaker 1: us who'd had encounters. We'd share locations, compare notes, try
Speaker 1: to make sense of it. The pattern was always similar,
Speaker 1: intelligent behavior, apparent communication, attempts, territorial, but not aggressive unless threatened.
Speaker 1: One ranger who'd worked the park for thirty years told
Speaker 1: me something that changed my perspective. He said, they'd always
Speaker 1: been here. The Cherokee had stories, the early settlers had stories.
Speaker 1: They're as much a part of these mountains as the
Speaker 1: bears and deer. We just refused to officially acknowledge them.
Speaker 1: He also said something that haunts me. He said, they're
Speaker 1: getting bolder because they have to. Development is pushing into
Speaker 1: their territory. Trails are going deeper into the back country.
Speaker 1: They're running out of places to hide. The encounters are
Speaker 1: increasing because we're not leaving them anywhere else to go.
Speaker 1: I worked another season after that, but my heart wasn't
Speaker 1: in it. I couldn't walk those trails without wondering what
Speaker 1: was watching from the forest, couldn't investigate reports of bear
Speaker 1: activity without wondering what we were really covering up. Couldn't
Speaker 1: pretend anymore that we understood these mountains. My last week
Speaker 1: on the job, I was hiking out from a back
Speaker 1: country patrol when I found something on the trail, A
Speaker 1: small bundle of sticks tied with vine with a black
Speaker 1: feather woven through it. It was placed right in the
Speaker 1: middle of the trail, where I couldn't miss it. I
Speaker 1: picked it up, studied it. Ruction was intricate, deliberate. It
Speaker 1: felt like a message or a gift. I looked around,
Speaker 1: said thank you to the empty forest. Felt silly, but
Speaker 1: also right. I keep that bundle on my bookshelf now.
Speaker 1: Sometimes I look at it and wonder what it means,
Speaker 1: A farewell gift, a token of recognition from one guardian
Speaker 1: of the forest to another. I'll never know, but I
Speaker 1: know they're still out there, still living their parallel lives
Speaker 1: in the deep places, still watching hikers pass through their territory,
Speaker 1: still maintaining whatever ancient relationship they have with those mountains,
Speaker 1: and sometimes when a hiker goes missing and is found
Speaker 1: days later with no memory of what happened, when strange
Speaker 1: sounds echo through the valleys, when experienced outdoorsmen report things
Speaker 1: that don't make sense, I know what's really happening. We're
Speaker 1: sharing these spaces with something that doesn't fit our understanding
Speaker 1: of the world, something intelligent, ancient, and deserving of respect.
Speaker 1: That's why I retired, not from fear, but from respect,
Speaker 1: from understanding that some boundaries shouldn't be crossed. Some knowledge
Speaker 1: comes with responsibilities I wasn't ready for. I'd spent fifteen
Speaker 1: years as a ranger thinking I was protecting the park.
Speaker 1: But maybe the park never needed our protection. Maybe it's
Speaker 1: been protected all along by something far older and more
Speaker 1: capable than us.
Speaker 3: They say, you don't gotta go home, but you can't stay.
Speaker 3: I don't want.
Speaker 2: To be.
Speaker 3: Out, be joy this job, that chid. Everything came right
Speaker 3: by rocking back for joy from me joy, staying right.
Speaker 3: You come in right away, steps, steps, steps, steps, bossas
Speaker 3: state passes states and Thames, US tosses