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
Speaker 1: I've personally become involved with the Untold Radio Network. The
Speaker 1: Untold Radio Network is a live streaming podcast network that
Speaker 1: airs a new show every day across all podcast platforms, YouTube,
Speaker 1: and more. They have eight different shows on all sorts
Speaker 1: of exciting topics such as bigfoot, cryptids, UFOs, aliens, and
Speaker 1: much more. I even have my own show called Weird Encounters,
Speaker 1: where I talk about all things strange. This is more
Speaker 1: than just a podcast network. It's a community that allows
Speaker 1: me to meet so many amazing people who share their
Speaker 1: stories and experiences with strange. If you're interested in hearing
Speaker 1: more of these stories and learning more about the paranormal
Speaker 1: and encryptids, make sure you check out the Untold Radio
Speaker 1: Network for all kinds of exciting shows. It's free to subscribe.
Speaker 1: So what are you waiting for visit www dot untold
Speaker 1: radionetwork dot com today.
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.
Speaker 1: Happen?
Speaker 2: What are you reporting? We got some wonder or something
Speaker 2: crawling around out here? Did you see what it was?
Speaker 2: It was enough here. Look, I'm new to window now
Speaker 2: and I don't need anything. I don't want to go outside. Hello,
Speaker 2: hit the boddy out here? What quent on out there?
Speaker 2: It's thought of a bench about text nine? I don't
Speaker 2: know easy amount there. Yeah, I'm walking right, heady.
Speaker 1: Strange encounters with mysterious beasts in Alaska. The vast and
Speaker 1: untamed wilderness of Alaska is a place of breath taking
Speaker 1: natural beauty. A land of towering mountains, sprawling tundras, and
Speaker 1: dense forests. Sparsely populated and largely untouched. This frigid expanse
Speaker 1: is home to more than just its rugged landscapes and wildlife.
Speaker 1: According to numerous reports, it also harbors creatures of a
Speaker 1: more mysterious nature. While the legend of Bigfoot's presence in
Speaker 1: Alaska is well known, other bizarre entities have been spotted
Speaker 1: lurking in its remote reaches. This is a collection of
Speaker 1: some of the most perplexing Alaska encryptid encounters. One particularly
Speaker 1: ear Every category of sightings involved strange entities resembling what
Speaker 1: can only be described as dog men. These creatures have
Speaker 1: been reported in the far northern wilderness, including an encounter
Speaker 1: shared by a witness named Melissa H. On The dog
Speaker 1: Man Encounter's website. She recounts a chilling experience in Mattanouska
Speaker 1: Valley County, Alaska, while driving home from work in the
Speaker 1: early morning hours. Her route took her through the isolated
Speaker 1: northern stretch of Trunk Road between Palmer and Wassilla, nearly
Speaker 1: one hundred miles of icy, desolate wilderness where one could
Speaker 1: drive all night without seeing another vehicle. It was around
Speaker 1: two am on a cold October night in nineteen ninety eight,
Speaker 1: and Melissa was cautiously navigating the icy roads about ten
Speaker 1: minutes from home. Her headlights illuminated a massive, dark figure ahead.
Speaker 1: Initially mistaking it for a moose, she slowed down, only
Speaker 1: to realize it was standing on two legs, too slim
Speaker 1: to be a bear. It had spikes running down its
Speaker 1: neck and back. She describes the moment in chilling detail.
Speaker 1: I could clearly see its wolfish muzzle, large upright ears.
Speaker 1: The spikes on its back were in fact clumps of fur.
Speaker 1: Its spine curved in a smooth, very natural looking way.
Speaker 1: It was standing in the ditch inches from the pavement.
Speaker 1: Because I was focused on its upper body, I do
Speaker 1: not recall anything about its back legs or if it
Speaker 1: had a tail. I did see its front legs, though
Speaker 1: very doggy looking, hanging awkwardly down and slightly toward its front,
Speaker 1: exactly as you'd expect if a dog stood upright. While
Speaker 1: it clearly had a canine look, there was still something
Speaker 1: off about it that I cannot articulate. It was perfectly still,
Speaker 1: and at this point, given the proximity to Halloween, I
Speaker 1: was quite convinced it was some sort of Halloween prop
Speaker 1: Because it was clearly not any kind of existing animal.
Speaker 1: I was deeply impressed, and gently stepped on the brakes,
Speaker 1: intending to stop and examine it closely. Then it turned
Speaker 1: its head to towards me. In the tiny fraction of
Speaker 1: a second that it took for it to swivel its head,
Speaker 1: I knew I had made a terrible mistake. The fluidness
Speaker 1: of its movement removed any in all doubt that this
Speaker 1: was some kind of prop It was horribly, terrifyingly alive.
Speaker 1: The pale, off white glow of its eye shine in
Speaker 1: the headlights destroyed any possibility of a human in a costume.
Speaker 1: I think I sat there, gaping at it and shocked
Speaker 1: for a few seconds. The car barely moving by now,
Speaker 1: but still inching closer as I was almost upon it.
Speaker 1: I think it could have leaned forward and touched the
Speaker 1: car if it had wanted. I had to look up
Speaker 1: to see its face. Again. I'm a bad judge of
Speaker 1: such things, but I am five four, and it was
Speaker 1: a hell of a lot taller than me, tall like
Speaker 1: a polar bear, standing seven feet eight. I really can't say.
Speaker 1: I snapped out of my trance and slammed on the gas.
Speaker 1: The car fish tailed, and I prepared myself for death
Speaker 1: by monster as I was certain I'd end up in
Speaker 1: the ditch, but the tires caught the pavement and I
Speaker 1: drove like a complete maniac all the way home. I
Speaker 1: did not look back. This was no ordinary Bigfoot sighting.
Speaker 1: What then did Melissa encounter that night on the lonely
Speaker 1: frozen road. Could this have been one of the infamous
Speaker 1: dogmen reported around the world. Was it some kind of werewolf,
Speaker 1: a supernatural entity, or simply a figment of an over
Speaker 1: active imagination. No one knows for sure, but it remains
Speaker 1: a terrifying tale. Another Alaskan mystery creature, similar to Bigfoot,
Speaker 1: but seemingly unique in its own right, has been reported
Speaker 1: in the southwest region near Lake Iliamna. Known by various names,
Speaker 1: the aru Latac bushman, big Man, tent monster, Nantina, or
Speaker 1: most commonly, the Uruyuli, meaning hairy man, this beast is
Speaker 1: said to resemble the classic Bigfoot, but with distinct differences.
Speaker 1: Described as standing between seven and fourteen feet tall, the
Speaker 1: Uruyuli is covered in shaggy hair, often appearing more ape
Speaker 1: like than human. However, its most striking feature is its
Speaker 1: disproportionately long arms, which extend down to its ankles, its eyes,
Speaker 1: are said to glow red in the darkness, highly adept
Speaker 1: at swimming. This creature has been blamed for livestock and
Speaker 1: pet disappearances, campsite raids, and fish thefts. Alleged tracks attributed
Speaker 1: to the Uruuli have been found near bodies of water,
Speaker 1: and in nineteen eighty two, a hunting guide even captured
Speaker 1: a supposed photograph of one standing on a mountain ridge
Speaker 1: near Dillingham. Could the uraulely be a variant of Bigfoot
Speaker 1: or is it something entirely different. Alaska is also home
Speaker 1: to its share of aquatic cryptids. One of the most
Speaker 1: famous is a mysterious sea creature said to inhabit the
Speaker 1: waters around Kodiak Island. The first well documented modern siding
Speaker 1: took place in April nineteen sixty nine, when the shrimp
Speaker 1: boat my Lark detected an unusual sonar reading at a
Speaker 1: depth of over three hundred feet. The crew was shot
Speaker 1: to see what appeared to be the outline of an
Speaker 1: enormous dinosaur like beast with fins and a long neck
Speaker 1: resting on the seafloor. Although the creature remained motionless, the
Speaker 1: sonar image was captured and skipper chet Peterson estimated its
Speaker 1: length to be around two hundred feet. The image made
Speaker 1: front page news in the Kodiak Daily Mirror. Another sighting
Speaker 1: occurred in the summer of nineteen seventy one, when a
Speaker 1: fishing crew spotted a bizarre thirty foot long marine animal
Speaker 1: with a horse like head. One of the crew members
Speaker 1: fired a rifle at it, causing the creature to submerge
Speaker 1: and swim directly beneath their boat before resurfacing on the
Speaker 1: other side. Eddie Pokinen, one of the crew members, described
Speaker 1: the encounter. We don't know what it was, but it
Speaker 1: had a grayish color and we couldn't see any fins
Speaker 1: or any tail, and it never made any noise. It
Speaker 1: would just come up and you could see the head
Speaker 1: and part of the body. According to witnesses, the creature
Speaker 1: appeared near shore at around two pm for several consecutive days,
Speaker 1: and it was even photographed, with the image later appearing
Speaker 1: in a Whanie magazine. A more recent sighting occurred in
Speaker 1: two thousand and two, when a fishing skiff in Uganic
Speaker 1: Bay spotted an unknown creature surfacing in the early morning
Speaker 1: hours despite the dim light. Crew member Tolef Monson describe
Speaker 1: what they saw there's this neck and head. And it
Speaker 1: wasn't like your hands around the neck big. It was
Speaker 1: like your arms around the neck big. I saw it
Speaker 1: do its movements, but I couldn't tell you if the
Speaker 1: neck was a foot in diameter or three feet in diameter.
Speaker 1: It was all darkish, but I was paying attention to
Speaker 1: driving the skiff. It didn't really focus on us. It
Speaker 1: didn't look at us, it didn't make eye contact. No,
Speaker 1: and whatever it was didn't stick around. In a few seconds,
Speaker 1: it was gone back under the water. I mean, we
Speaker 1: were so tired that it was like, did I just
Speaker 1: see that? Did we just see that? Monson had another
Speaker 1: unsettling encounter the following summer, when something rammed into their
Speaker 1: boat from below on a calm day. The impact was
Speaker 1: powerful enough to nearly throw him overboard, and he insisted
Speaker 1: that no whales were present in the area. He remarked,
Speaker 1: it was big, like a log hitting the skiff. But
Speaker 1: nothing goes dong and lurches this big old skiff like that.
Speaker 1: I don't know what that was either was this the
Speaker 1: same sea creature or an entirely different beast. Whatever the case,
Speaker 1: Alaska remains a land of mystery. Its vast wilderness and
Speaker 1: deep waters, continuing to hide secrets that defy explanation. Tony
Speaker 1: William's two day ordeal in the wilderness after falling into Lochlamarcher,
Speaker 1: a man who spent two days stranded on an island
Speaker 1: after his canoe capsized, claims he had a chilling encounter
Speaker 1: with a mythical being in the Tleicho region of the
Speaker 1: Northwest Territories. He's far from the first to report such
Speaker 1: an experience. On July seventeenth, forty two year old Tony
Speaker 1: William was traveling by boat from Wati to the northernmost
Speaker 1: tip of lfe Acklamartre when he noticed something floating in
Speaker 1: the water, a plastic bag drifting along the waves. Steering
Speaker 1: his boat closer. He prepared to retrieve it. Just as
Speaker 1: he reached in, a wave struck, throwing him overboard into
Speaker 1: the freezing lake. Weighed down by his soaked clothes, he
Speaker 1: struggled to climb back into the boat, but found himself
Speaker 1: being pulled downward. Grasping a plastic bag of supplies, he
Speaker 1: began the long, exhausting swim to shore. I managed to
Speaker 1: swim to an island at the end of the point.
Speaker 1: William recounted from his yellow Knife hospital bed last week
Speaker 1: in an interview with CBC and TLITCHO. That's when he
Speaker 1: encountered something he never expected, the bushman. All of a sudden,
Speaker 1: there was a big man standing beside me, he recalled.
Speaker 1: The figure soon disappeared, vanishing into the trees, with the
Speaker 1: sound of snapping branches marking its departure. William quickly gathered
Speaker 1: his soaked clothes, packed them into a white bag, and
Speaker 1: prepared to leave the island. After swimming away, he endured
Speaker 1: another forty eight hours alone in the wilderness before being
Speaker 1: rescued by the RCMP and the Canadian military. Once safe,
Speaker 1: he eagerly shared his story, telling anyone who would listen
Speaker 1: about his encounter with the bushmen. For many in the
Speaker 1: Tlecho region, the existence of bushmen, known in the Tlecho
Speaker 1: language as nago, is an undeniable reality passed down through generations.
Speaker 1: These mysterious human like entities are said to have roamed
Speaker 1: the land for thousands of years, feared for their ability
Speaker 1: to abduct people from bush camps. Clecho columnist John B.
Speaker 1: Zoe described the terrifying nature of nago in a twenty
Speaker 1: ten issue of NWT News North generally they are silent,
Speaker 1: and for the unfortunate few who have seen them, these
Speaker 1: symptoms can be experienced. The back of the neck will tingle,
Speaker 1: skin will break into goose bumps, unstoppable shivers, the heart
Speaker 1: beats faster, accompanied by shortness of breath, Zoey wrote Clecho
Speaker 1: elder Mischee till Lewis Rebesca first heard about Nago as
Speaker 1: a young boy while living in the bush with his parents.
Speaker 1: I got the story from my grandma because my grandma
Speaker 1: lived in the bush all the time, he said. According
Speaker 1: to Rebesca, Nago and the Tlecho people have coexisted in
Speaker 1: the same region since time immemorial. These beings resemble humans,
Speaker 1: even wearing modern clothing, but possess powerful magic. They are
Speaker 1: said to lure people in and abduct them, never to
Speaker 1: be seen again. There are even stories of Nago stealing
Speaker 1: entire moose and caribou carcasses. One of the most chilling
Speaker 1: accounts Rebesca heard as a child was about a relative
Speaker 1: who encountered Nago and mysteriously vanished. In that particular tale,
Speaker 1: Nago appeared suddenly on an island. They used medicine power
Speaker 1: to push him into the shore. They did it. They
Speaker 1: took him. Rebesca recalled, so we never seen him, never
Speaker 1: heard him again. Some people heard him talking, screaming help,
Speaker 1: but nobody can do nothing. Nearly a century later, Rebesca
Speaker 1: had his own unsettling encounter with Nago. It happened decades ago.
Speaker 1: As he was driving toward the frank channel bridge between
Speaker 1: Ray and Edzo early one morning, a man was standing
Speaker 1: in the middle of the narrow bridge. Rebesca slowed down
Speaker 1: as he approached, but before he could react, the man
Speaker 1: suddenly leapt over the side. Alarmed, Rebesca rushed out of
Speaker 1: his vehicle and ran to the edge, expecting to see
Speaker 1: the man in the water below. But there was nothing.
Speaker 1: I didn't see him. I don't know what happened to him.
Speaker 1: Rebesca has spent years collecting and passing down stories of
Speaker 1: Nago to future generations. He believes that as development pushes
Speaker 1: deeper into the wilderness, encounters with the bushmen will only
Speaker 1: become more frequent. A terrifying encounter on a logging road,
Speaker 1: a hunter comes face to face with a Sasquatch. A
Speaker 1: witness and his family were out bear hunting on a
Speaker 1: remote logging road when they had an encounter that would
Speaker 1: forever change their perception of the wilderness. Tune for more
Speaker 1: sasquatch ott to see.
Speaker 3: We'll be right back.
Speaker 1: After these messages, at approximately nine thirty PM, as they
Speaker 1: drove past a power line cut line, they noticed what
Speaker 1: appeared to be the rear end of a bear disappearing
Speaker 1: into the left hand side of the clearing. Curious, the
Speaker 1: witness exited the vehicle and walked about fifty yards down
Speaker 1: the cut line to the spot where the animal had
Speaker 1: entered the dense brush. As he arrived, something unexpected happened
Speaker 1: on the right hand side of the cut line. Opposite
Speaker 1: to where the creature had entered. Several poplar trees, each
Speaker 1: about six to eight inches in diameter, suddenly began shaking violently.
Speaker 1: Describing it as an explosion of movement in the brush,
Speaker 1: the witness was stunned as two enormous hands emerged from
Speaker 1: the trees, parting the branches. The fingers, he estimated were
Speaker 1: nearly the diameter of a red bull can and as
Speaker 1: long as his entire hand. Despite standing on higher ground,
Speaker 1: the witness found himself face to face with an unknown creature,
Speaker 1: one he could only describe as a sasquatch. From his
Speaker 1: vantage point, he had a clear view of its forehead
Speaker 1: and nose, though its mouth remained obscured by the thick vegetation.
Speaker 1: The creature's head was massive, roughly the width of a basketball.
Speaker 1: Its eyes, the size of golf balls, were deep set
Speaker 1: beneath a pronounced brow ridge, and had a dark brown
Speaker 1: hue with no visible whites except for a faint purplish
Speaker 1: tinge in the area where the whites would typically be.
Speaker 1: The forehead was broad with sparse hair, while the nose
Speaker 1: was flat with nostrils the size of two thumbs placed
Speaker 1: side by side. The hair covering its body appeared matted,
Speaker 1: and the witness even noticed eyelashes on its eyelids. Startled,
Speaker 1: the witness instinctively raised his rifle toward the creature. At
Speaker 1: that moment. It immediately retreated into the dense forest, moving
Speaker 1: twenty to forty yards away. Meanwhile, his wife, who remained
Speaker 1: in the truck with their children, had been flashing the
Speaker 1: vehicle's headlights signaling him to return. Although she had not
Speaker 1: seen the creature in detail, she could make out its
Speaker 1: hunched silhouette in the brush, estimating that it was crouched
Speaker 1: approximately three feet below its full height. She could also
Speaker 1: see it shifting and moving throughout the encounter. As the
Speaker 1: witness made his way back to the truck, something unsettling occurred.
Speaker 1: Every second step he took the trees just fifteen yards
Speaker 1: into the tree line beside him shook in response, as
Speaker 1: if something was following his movements. Upon reaching the vehicle
Speaker 1: and getting inside, the eerie experience escalated. Almost immediately. The
Speaker 1: family heard a deep, resonant woo sound echo through the forest,
Speaker 1: repeating several times. Moments later, a loud bang resounded from
Speaker 1: the roof of the truck. Alarmed, they sped away, putting
Speaker 1: distance between themselves and the encounter. Once they felt safe
Speaker 1: enough to stop, they checked the roof to see what
Speaker 1: had hit the vehicle. There they discovered a large clump
Speaker 1: of mud and grass about the size of a dinner plate,
Speaker 1: apparently torn from the ground and lobbed onto the truck.
Speaker 1: That night, they decided to leave the area. The following day,
Speaker 1: the witness returned alone to the side of the encounter,
Speaker 1: hoping to find evidence of what he had witnessed. Upon arrival,
Speaker 1: he discovered what he believed to be a possible handprint
Speaker 1: in the mud on the cut line. Though it lacked
Speaker 1: distinct detail, the impression was notably large, elongated, and wide set.
Speaker 1: Further exploration revealed additional anomalies. Several trees had been stripped
Speaker 1: of their branches up to a height of approximately seven feet,
Speaker 1: with the bark peeled downward toward the ground. The sap
Speaker 1: oozing from the damaged trees appeared fresh. The surrounding area
Speaker 1: showed clear signs of disturbance. Broken branches littered the ground,
Speaker 1: and patches of earth had been upturned. As an experienced
Speaker 1: hunter and outdoorsman, the witness had spent countless hours in
Speaker 1: the wilderness, yet he had never encountered anything remotely like
Speaker 1: this before. Until that night, he had never believed in sasquatch. Now,
Speaker 1: after coming face to face with what he could only
Speaker 1: describe as one, his perspective had changed forever. Though shaken
Speaker 1: by the encounter, he hopes that one day he might
Speaker 1: see another sasquatch, this time in even greater detail. A
Speaker 1: mysterious encounter near Cassig Look. One spring afternoon, a family
Speaker 1: was out egg hunting near their village of Cassig Look
Speaker 1: when they came across something incredible. A large, dark, hairy
Speaker 1: creature walking upright, heading straight toward them. It was May
Speaker 1: twenty ninth, twenty twelve, around three pm. The weather was beautiful,
Speaker 1: slightly cloudy, and school had just let out for the summer.
Speaker 1: The family, a mother and her two teenage sons, were
Speaker 1: riding their four wheeler on the outskirts of the village
Speaker 1: when they saw it. Could it have been the legendary Bigfoot?
Speaker 1: We saw it near the lagoon here in Cassiglok, One
Speaker 1: of the eyewitnesses said. It was southeast of Fox Lake
Speaker 1: that day. Other people were also returning home from egg hunting,
Speaker 1: so at first the family assumed the figure was just
Speaker 1: another person, But after it passed, they looked at each
Speaker 1: other in shock. We just saw Bigfoot, one of them said.
Speaker 1: The creature was incredibly tall and dark, with long arms
Speaker 1: that hung past its knees. It was about seventy five
Speaker 1: yards away. The family watched for about two minutes as
Speaker 1: it walked toward them, Then as soon as it noticed them,
Speaker 1: it turned and disappeared over a hill. They quickly drove
Speaker 1: to where they last saw it, but it was gone.
Speaker 1: No one else seemed to have seen the mysterious figure.
Speaker 1: The mother of the two boys later wrote down her experience.
Speaker 1: I wanted to go egg hunting, but didn't want to
Speaker 1: go alone, so I asked my sons to come with me.
Speaker 1: My oldest son knew of a good spot, so we
Speaker 1: headed toward the lagoon, where the land is flat to
Speaker 1: the east. When we got there, my older son got
Speaker 1: off the four wheeler and ran ahead to check if
Speaker 1: anyone else was around. He went to the edge of
Speaker 1: the hill and then ran back, saying somebody was already there.
Speaker 1: We were about to leave when that somebody suddenly started
Speaker 1: running at an unbelievable speed. No human could have covered
Speaker 1: that much ground so fast. The figure was completely black
Speaker 1: from head to toe, hunchbacked with no visible neck, and
Speaker 1: its head was cone shaped. Its arms hung past its knees,
Speaker 1: and it was incredibly tall. At first, we kept asking
Speaker 1: each other who is that? But after watching it move,
Speaker 1: we knew something wasn't right. It walked fast, taking huge strides,
Speaker 1: and it would glance at us now and then. No
Speaker 1: person could move that quickly across the tundra. I finally asked,
Speaker 1: what is that? We were awe struck, completely dumbfounded. As
Speaker 1: it reached the edge of our view, I finally said,
Speaker 1: I think we just saw Bigfoot. In just about a minute,
Speaker 1: it had crossed the entire hill. It didn't look like
Speaker 1: it was running, just walking with massive steps. We rushed
Speaker 1: to the top of the hill, but it had vanished.
Speaker 1: Drove home feeling excited and amazed. That's my story. It
Speaker 1: looked exactly like the Bigfoot in the Patterson film. If
Speaker 1: you've ever seen it, Bigfoot, or the hairy Man, as
Speaker 1: some call it, is not unheard of in the Yukon
Speaker 1: Coscokwim Delta. Just last summer, there were reports of multiple
Speaker 1: sightings in the Johnson River area and other nearby locations.
Speaker 1: Could this have been the same mysterious creature the legends
Speaker 1: of the Kushtaka. The young Klinget girl I was caring
Speaker 1: for clutched my arm, shaking with fear. Her dark eyes
Speaker 1: were wide, her voice barely above a whisper. Don't leave
Speaker 1: my side or they'll take me. Who I asked the Kushtaka?
Speaker 1: She whispered, afraid to say the name too loudly, as
Speaker 1: if speaking it might summon them. That night, she was
Speaker 1: too scared to sleep. We had just been told that
Speaker 1: the house we were staying in was built on what
Speaker 1: was rumored to be a native graveyard. The weight of
Speaker 1: that knowledge hung over us in the quiet darkness. To
Speaker 1: comfort her, I let her stay in my bed and
Speaker 1: talked about anything and everything, small, meaningless things, until the
Speaker 1: first light of dawn shimmered through the window. Only then
Speaker 1: did she finally drift off to sleep. My sister Megan
Speaker 1: once told me that for years she believed the Kushtaka
Speaker 1: often pronounced kostika, were frighteningly real. That fear came from
Speaker 1: our oldest brother, Jamie, who loved telling terrifying stories by
Speaker 1: kerosene lamplight. He spoke of the horrors the Kushtaka were
Speaker 1: capable of, how they lurked just outside the safety of
Speaker 1: our home, hidden in the vast, silent wilderness that surrounded us.
Speaker 1: Outside our windows, the night stretched endlessly. That darkness, combined
Speaker 1: with Jamie's chilling tales, was enough to make my two
Speaker 1: little brothers refuse to go outside alone after sunset, even
Speaker 1: on quick trips to hall Wood. They needed someone with them.
Speaker 1: Now an adult, my brother Robin recently shared a memory
Speaker 1: with me, one that still haunted him. Ago on a
Speaker 1: hunting trip deep in the wilderness, our uncle Rory told
Speaker 1: late night Kushtaka stories around the fire. The setting was perfect,
Speaker 1: uninhabited islands, a thick, endless forest, and nothing but the
Speaker 1: sounds of nature surrounding them. The next morning, Robin and
Speaker 1: my youngest brother Chris were hunting along the beach when
Speaker 1: they stumbled upon something strange. It was a dead animal,
Speaker 1: Robin said, very hairy, grayish. We couldn't tell what it was,
Speaker 1: but it's sure as shit scared the hell out of us.
Speaker 1: The Kushtaka are not just ancient myths. These half human,
Speaker 1: half otter creatures have been spoken of for generations in
Speaker 1: Native Alaskan folklore. In modern times, they've been compared to bigfoot, extraterrestrials,
Speaker 1: and other supernatural beings. They appear in horror novels, blog posts,
Speaker 1: YouTube videos, newspaper articles, and even conspiracy theories. One book
Speaker 1: describes them as a shape shifting beast capable of taking
Speaker 1: your darkest fears and manifest them into a hellish reality.
Speaker 1: The book goes further suggesting that the Kushtaka may be
Speaker 1: connected to fallen angels in the Nephelem, claiming this is
Speaker 1: information that the UFO community and the church don't want
Speaker 1: you to know. A horror novel about the creatures, paints
Speaker 1: an eerie picture. Mark wakes up in his Alaskan cabin alone.
Speaker 1: His greatest fears are realized when he is tormented by
Speaker 1: the malevolent Kushtaka, the most ancient and evil demon of
Speaker 1: Alaskan folklore. The battle is not for his life, but
Speaker 1: for his very soul. One Amazon reviewer, someone who had
Speaker 1: lived in southeast Alaska and fished for a living, left
Speaker 1: a chilling comment. Fishermen are a superstitious group, and stories
Speaker 1: of encounters with this spirit are abundant. They aren't just legends,
Speaker 1: they are recent, they are believable. I had my own
Speaker 1: experience in the forest, and let's just say I'm a believer.
Speaker 1: Stories of the Kushtaka are shared with anyone venturing into
Speaker 1: the deep Alaskan wilderness, and I too, have experienced firsthand
Speaker 1: the eerie consequences of this tradition. There's something out there.
Speaker 1: I was exhausted. Working as a cook, deckhand and housekeeper
Speaker 1: on a guideboat meant long days. I was up at
Speaker 1: six thirty am making breakfast and bagged lunches, and I
Speaker 1: rarely got to bed before midnight, sometimes not until two
Speaker 1: thirty am. When the guides and clients went out for
Speaker 1: the day, I took the chance to nap in the wheelhouse.
Speaker 1: But today two clients had stayed behind, and now they
Speaker 1: were waking me up. They tried to act casual, but
Speaker 1: their voices betrayed their unease. Something can you describe it?
Speaker 2: I asked?
Speaker 1: They hesitated. Finally, the older man spoke something strange, awful.
Speaker 1: His tone was no longer casual. Come outside, you can
Speaker 1: hear it, I sighed. I had been through this before.
Speaker 1: Not long ago, two non Alaskan guides had shaken me
Speaker 1: awake in the middle of the night. Panicked something had
Speaker 1: bumped into the hull of the boat. They darted from
Speaker 1: one side to the other, peering into the still black water.
Speaker 1: They begged me to turn on the big mass light.
Speaker 2: I did.
Speaker 1: They whispered about monsters, about the kushtaka, about the things
Speaker 1: that lurked in the wilderness. They asked me.
Speaker 2: What I thought.
Speaker 1: I could have shared the terrifying stories from my childhood,
Speaker 1: but I was too tired a log, I said, and
Speaker 1: went back to bed. I fell asleep to the sound
Speaker 1: of their nervous whispers and footsteps pacing above me. Now
Speaker 1: it was the clients who were spooked. I sighed, got
Speaker 1: up and followed them outside. The evening was peaceful. The
Speaker 1: sky glowed with the soft colors of sunset reflecting off
Speaker 1: the still waters of the bay. The endless forest surrounding
Speaker 1: us was turning black, the towering trees like jagged spears
Speaker 1: against the fading light. We felt alone, completely cut off
Speaker 1: from the rest of the world. The clients stood close.
Speaker 1: Just listen. One of them whispered, They're out there. I listened.
Speaker 1: Then from across the water, a horrible sound shattered the silence,
Speaker 1: a guttural echoing cry, something between a deep, mournful howl
Speaker 1: and an angry inhuman roar. It had a strange, unnatural
Speaker 1: after sound, like a Harley Davidson being revved inside a
Speaker 1: long tunnel. The clients gasped, there it is, they exclaimed,
Speaker 1: You heard it, didn't you. We told you something was
Speaker 1: out there. They were right, something was out there. It's
Speaker 1: a sea lion. I said, and went back to bed.
Speaker 2: Still.
Speaker 1: The question lingers, is there really something out there in
Speaker 1: the Alaskan wilderness? Do the Kushtaka exist beyond legend, beyond
Speaker 1: oral tradition, horror stories and conspiracy theories? What started the
Speaker 1: tales of these half human, half odter creatures, what caused
Speaker 1: them to be passed down through generations, terrifying children and
Speaker 1: adults alike, and most chilling of all, Could we ever
Speaker 1: find out the truth? In the land of missing persons,
Speaker 1: two families, two bodies, and a wilderness of secrets. In
Speaker 1: the spring of twenty fourteen, firefighters battling a massive blaze
Speaker 1: on Alaska's Keenei Peninsula made a shocking discovery. They first
Speaker 1: spotted a lone boot in the dirt, then scattered bones.
Speaker 1: At first, they assumed it was just another moose or bear,
Speaker 1: common sights in these remote woods, but then they found
Speaker 1: a human skull lying on its side, its blackened molars
Speaker 1: still clinging to the upper Jaw. Alaska State troopers arrived
Speaker 1: by helicopter to collect what remained. The bones were so
Speaker 1: fragile they were nearly reduced to ash. The area, stretching
Speaker 1: sixty yards wide, was likely disturbed by scavengers. Among the
Speaker 1: scattered debris they found hunting knives, coins, metal buttons, a zipper,
Speaker 1: and a burnt Samsung phone. Everything was charred, much like
Speaker 1: the rest of the land ravaged by the Funny River fire,
Speaker 1: which had consumed nearly two hundred thousand acres. No one
Speaker 1: knew it then, but these bones would unravel a strange,
Speaker 1: heartbreaking mystery, one that spanned a decade and two missing men.
Speaker 1: Troopers guessed the remains belonged to a man based on
Speaker 1: the boot size and general experience, but they couldn't determine
Speaker 1: how he died. Maybe he got lost and froze to death.
Speaker 1: Maybe he fell down a steep embankment. Maybe he met
Speaker 1: a bear there are thousands in the area, some of
Speaker 1: the biggest in the world. Or perhaps he ate poison
Speaker 1: berries intentionally or not. Alaska is a place where people
Speaker 1: sometimes disappear by choice. The possibilities were endless. Word of
Speaker 1: the discovery spread quickly to the small towns along the
Speaker 1: Sterling Highway in Soldotna, about twenty miles away. Dolly Hills
Speaker 1: received a call from her granddaughter, who was frantic. Why
Speaker 1: hadn't the police told them? The same question was on
Speaker 1: many minds, including that of Lieutenant Kat Shueye, who wondered
Speaker 1: aloud at headquarters. Could it be Rick? Dolly's son, Richard
Speaker 1: Thomas Hills had been missing for nearly ten years. I
Speaker 1: first met Dolly in January two thousand and five, while
Speaker 1: working on a story about the countless people who vanish
Speaker 1: in Alaska. Over three thousand had been reported missing the
Speaker 1: previous year alone, more than the population of Seldotna itself.
Speaker 1: Curious about Rick's case, I traveled south to the Kenai
Speaker 1: Peninsula from above. Alaska is a land of extremes, glacier
Speaker 1: topped mountains, vast forests, and marshy lowland, stretching endlessly into
Speaker 1: the horizon. It's easy to see why people come here
Speaker 1: to escape. Some never return. In Sildotna, I met Dolly
Speaker 1: and Haidi Matir, Rick's longtime partner and the mother of
Speaker 1: his children. Dolly was warm and outgoing, with a high,
Speaker 1: cheerful voice even when discussing tragedy. Heidi was quieter, steadier. Together,
Speaker 1: they had spent years searching for Rick. Rick had disappeared
Speaker 1: on February twenty fourth, two thousand and four. He had
Speaker 1: just returned home from an oil rig job and was
Speaker 1: heading to Anchorage to pick up a paycheck. He made
Speaker 1: it there, but two days later, his red Dodge truck
Speaker 1: was found in a snowbank, just fifteen miles from home.
Speaker 1: The keys were in the ignition, his wallet and two
Speaker 1: hundred and ninety two dollars in cash sitting on the
Speaker 1: front seat. His tracks led away from the truck, one
Speaker 1: foot dragged, as if he were injured. They led to
Speaker 1: a house maybe he was looking for help, then onto
Speaker 1: an abandoned airstrip, and there the tracks vanished, as if
Speaker 1: he had been lifted straight into the air. Dolly and
Speaker 1: Hide never believed Rick had taken his own life. He
Speaker 1: loved his kids too much. He had even secretly bought
Speaker 1: and wrapped Christmas presents for them just months before he disappeared.
Speaker 1: On the day he left, he asked if they wanted
Speaker 1: to come along, a man planning to end his life
Speaker 1: wouldn't do that. They feared something else had happened. Rick
Speaker 1: had a wild side. He ran with a rough crowd,
Speaker 1: partied hard, and had tried countless times to straighten out.
Speaker 1: But no matter what, he always called home, he would
Speaker 1: never just vanish. After the police stopped searching, Dolly and
Speaker 1: Heide kept going. They put up missing person posters, questioned people,
Speaker 1: and even consulted psychics. One psychic told them that Rick
Speaker 1: had died alone in the snow, that two men had
Speaker 1: been nearby, but didn't help him. She also said it
Speaker 1: would be ten years before he was found. Ten years.
Speaker 1: We can't wait that long, Dolly had said, but she
Speaker 1: had no choice. A decade passed. Then, in September twenty fourteen,
Speaker 1: I got an email. It was Dolly and Heidi. You're
Speaker 1: not going to believe this, Dolly said. I hope you're
Speaker 1: sitting down. We found him height, he added, but the
Speaker 1: bones in the Funny River fire weren't ricks. They belonged
Speaker 1: to someone else. Another missing man, another Richard Richard Bennett,
Speaker 1: had disappeared from the same area in two thousand and five,
Speaker 1: just a year after Rick Hills. Like Rick, he was
Speaker 1: an outdoorsman, a quiet man who preferred the wilderness. He
Speaker 1: lived alone in a trailer just half a mile from
Speaker 1: where Rick's truck had been found. One day, his family
Speaker 1: stopped by and discovered his place, cleaned out, his belongings
Speaker 1: packed into labeled bins, his truck signed over to his sister.
Speaker 1: It was as if he had planned to leave. Months later,
Speaker 1: his skeleton minus a skull, was found three hundred yards
Speaker 1: from his trailer. The police assumed it was him. No
Speaker 1: DNA test was done. His family held a funeral, buried
Speaker 1: the remains and moved on. But in twenty fourteen, when
Speaker 1: the Funny River bones were tested, the truth unraveled. The
Speaker 1: remains buried in two thousand and six weren't Richard Bennett's.
Speaker 1: They were Rick Hills. For ten years, Rick had been
Speaker 1: lying in a grave meant for another man. The mistake
Speaker 1: was devastating. Troopers scrambled to correct it, delivering apology letters
Speaker 1: to both families, but the damage was done. And stay
Speaker 1: tuned for more Sasquatch oat to see We'll be right back.
Speaker 1: After these messages, Leon Bennett, Richard's father, was heartbroken all
Speaker 1: over again. He had thought his son was at rest.
Speaker 1: Now he was missing all over again. He never told
Speaker 1: his wife, who was in failing health. She died still
Speaker 1: believing their son had been buried. Dolly and Heidie retrieved
Speaker 1: Rick's remains from the grave where he had been mistakenly placed.
Speaker 1: They held hands, said a prayer, and brought him home.
Speaker 1: Heid He placed the urn beside her bed that night.
Speaker 1: I never thought you'd be in my bedroom again, she whispered.
Speaker 1: The mystery of Richard bennett remains. He vanished into the
Speaker 1: vastness of Alaska, like so many others. Maybe he perished
Speaker 1: in the wilderness. Maybe he left to start a new life.
Speaker 1: His father still wonders. You don't want to dwell on it,
Speaker 1: Leon said, but there's a possibility. Alaska is full of
Speaker 1: stories like this. People vanish, some are found, some are
Speaker 1: never seen again, but the families left behind never stop searching,
Speaker 1: never stop wondering, and never stop hoping. The Hairy Man
Speaker 1: Alaska Sasquatch. Donald enjoys watching the Discovery Channel, especially shows
Speaker 1: about mysteries or strange wildlife. Whenever he does, he sometimes
Speaker 1: feels the urge to call his brother in law Frank.
Speaker 1: When they talk, Donald says, Frank gets quiet and serious.
Speaker 1: That's when they remember. They remember a night more than
Speaker 1: twenty five years ago. They remember the creature that towered
Speaker 1: four feet above their teenage frames in the moonlight. It
Speaker 1: had long arms, a thick coat of hair, and a
Speaker 1: face that was both human and not. They remember its strength.
Speaker 1: I remember watching him run through the alders in the moonlight,
Speaker 1: Donald recalls. We have a lot of alders here. He
Speaker 1: was pushing them aside while running, and Frank saw what
Speaker 1: the village elders call Olock, the creature many Alaskans know
Speaker 1: as the hairy man. It's a large, powerful, and mysterious
Speaker 1: biped with near human features and a reputation for lurking
Speaker 1: in the wilderness. These stories go back hundreds of years,
Speaker 1: says Danny Sebert, a pilot who grew up in Chignik.
Speaker 1: My grandparents heard them from their grandparents, and when you
Speaker 1: go to Canada you hear the same stories. In Canada
Speaker 1: and much of the United States, hairy Man is known
Speaker 1: as sasquatch or Bigfoot. In the Himalayas, it's the Yetti
Speaker 1: or abominable snowman. Mongolia and China have the Alma. The
Speaker 1: legend is so widespread that an entire field of study
Speaker 1: cryptozoology exists to investigate creatures like hairy Man. A quick
Speaker 1: search for Sasquatch on Amazon dot com brings up over
Speaker 1: a thousand books. Every region of Alaska has its own
Speaker 1: version of the hairy man story. The dinna ena Athabaskans
Speaker 1: call him Nantina and warned them that he kidnaps children
Speaker 1: and raises them in the wild. There's a tale of
Speaker 1: a man who shot and wounded a hairy man, only
Speaker 1: for it to escape, leaving behind blood that looked like
Speaker 1: transmission fluid. A nineteen eighty one school publication from English
Speaker 1: Bay includes a student's account of a summer in Port
Speaker 1: Graham where a shadowy figure whistled, hid behind trees, and
Speaker 1: left her terrified. While skeptics may dismiss these stories, believers
Speaker 1: remain certain. Donald speaks carefully, but with confidence he knows
Speaker 1: what he saw that night. Children see the hairy Man.
Speaker 1: In the July thirty first, twenty thirteen issue of The
Speaker 1: Delta Discovery, we published a story about a hairy mans
Speaker 1: sighting that took place in April of this year in
Speaker 1: the village of Napakiak. This week's story revisits the same
Speaker 1: hairy man encounter, but from the perspective of two children
Speaker 1: who witnessed the creature. It was late April twenty thirteen
Speaker 1: when two brothers, ages sixteen and twelve, were outside in
Speaker 1: their village of napakis Act. They could see the bluff
Speaker 1: on the other side of the slow and it was
Speaker 1: there that they spotted the creature. It was very large,
Speaker 1: approximately nine feet tall, and black in color, said the
Speaker 1: sixteen year old. It was taller than a human and
Speaker 1: very black. Just standing in the open, he added, The
Speaker 1: older boy waved his arms to get its attention. He
Speaker 1: even tried whistling, but the creature simply stood there looking
Speaker 1: at them. The younger boy, feeling scared, told his brother
Speaker 1: how he felt. His older brother reassured him, telling him
Speaker 1: not to be afraid. This is the first time I
Speaker 1: experienced seeing Bigfoot, said the twelve year old. On this
Speaker 1: late April day, there was still some snow on the
Speaker 1: ground and children were playing and sledding down the bluff.
Speaker 1: Some of the kids spotted the creature and terrified ran home, crying.
Speaker 1: They later described the animal, saying its hair was dark brown.
Speaker 1: The sixteen year old boy heard about the other children
Speaker 1: who had fled in fear. Eventually, the creature ambled away
Speaker 1: over the hill in a northwesterlyder until it disappeared from view.
Speaker 1: Just as reported in the previous article, a person who
Speaker 1: later visited the area took photographs of the footprints left behind.
Speaker 1: Though the tracks had been distorted after a couple of
Speaker 1: days by the hot spring sun, it was evident that
Speaker 1: the footprints were far too large to belong to a human.
Speaker 1: Around the same time, a worker at the Napakiak Village
Speaker 1: Corporation was looking out of a second story window during
Speaker 1: the early afternoon hours when she saw something unusual walking
Speaker 1: on top of the bluff across the Napakiak Slough. It
Speaker 1: was dark colored and walking on two feet. She said
Speaker 1: it was really unusual, too tall to be a person.
Speaker 1: It was taller than the brush on top of the bluff.
Speaker 1: She had seen people on the bluff before, but they
Speaker 1: had never appeared that tall. The creature then walked down
Speaker 1: to the lower part of the bluff and disappeared. About
Speaker 1: ten minutes later, it reappeared. Alarmed, the worker ran downstairs
Speaker 1: and called to people inside the store on the lower
Speaker 1: floor of the build, urging them to come upstairs and
Speaker 1: see what she was witnessing. About eight people gathered at
Speaker 1: the windows and saw it for themselves. They were all excited.
Speaker 1: As the group continued watching, a snowmobiler appeared over the
Speaker 1: hill on the Napakiak Bethel Trail. The driver, seemingly unaware,
Speaker 1: did not notice the creature, but the creature reacted in
Speaker 1: an unusual way. It crouched low to the ground to
Speaker 1: hide from the snowmobiler and only moved again once the
Speaker 1: snow machine had passed. Moments later, the people in the
Speaker 1: village Corporation building watched as the creature ambled away, disappearing
Speaker 1: over the hill in a northwesterly direction. The worker who
Speaker 1: shared this account said this was not the only time
Speaker 1: harryman beings had been sighted near Napakiak. The day before
Speaker 1: this incident, a lone ice fishermen near the village had
Speaker 1: reported seeing a group of them together. A person who
Speaker 1: later returned to the area took photographs of the footprints
Speaker 1: left behind. Though the tracks had been distorted by the
Speaker 1: spring sun, it was clear that they were too large
Speaker 1: to belong to a human. The worker recalled that her
Speaker 1: mother and father had always told her these hairyman beings
Speaker 1: have their own families and are simply trying to survive,
Speaker 1: just as humans do. They emphasize the importance of respecting them,
Speaker 1: just as people respect the land. She also warned that
Speaker 1: these beings will defend themselves and their families if they
Speaker 1: feel threatened. We have to leave them be when we
Speaker 1: see them, she said.
Speaker 3: Di Time and Shadow