Speaker 1: I've been interested in bigfoot for a long time, but
Speaker 1: it wasn't until the last few years that I had
Speaker 1: the free time to be able to travel and see
Speaker 1: some good locations myself. I'm from the Midwest. We can't
Speaker 1: match Oregon, Washington, or Ohio, but there are a few
Speaker 1: spots that are known to have activity. One such place
Speaker 1: was in the state Forest, about four hours from me,
Speaker 1: and so late in September I decided to spend a
Speaker 1: few days checking it out. On arriving, I set up
Speaker 1: in the main campground. This is a relatively isolated area
Speaker 1: and mostly draws trout fishermen to fish the local streams.
Speaker 1: There were a couple of fishermen camping with RVs, but
Speaker 1: otherwise I had the place to myself. At mid afternoon,
Speaker 1: I set out driving some of the forest roads in
Speaker 1: my truck, just getting the feel of the area. When
Speaker 1: I came to a parking spot for a couple of
Speaker 1: mile long hiking tree trail, I decided to get out
Speaker 1: and stretch my legs and check out the walk in
Speaker 1: campground that was supposed to be back in there. It
Speaker 1: was cool in the woods and I walked along quietly,
Speaker 1: just watching for animals and enjoying being out, not really
Speaker 1: expecting anything. But as I got close to the campground
Speaker 1: off in the woods a few hundred yards to the south,
Speaker 1: that was a loud wood knock. I couldn't believe it.
Speaker 1: I actually heard a wood knock, and on my first hike,
Speaker 1: it was very loud and clear. I would describe it
Speaker 1: as ringing almost. It sounded like hard, hard dead wood,
Speaker 1: no bark, very clear. I stopped dead in my tracks
Speaker 1: and listened for a good fifteen minutes, but there was
Speaker 1: nothing more. I didn't have my little baseball battle long
Speaker 1: and I wasn't about to start screaming like I was
Speaker 1: on TV. So after a while I just continued into
Speaker 1: the campground and looked around a little. I waited a
Speaker 1: while more. Still there was nothing, and then I got
Speaker 1: to thinking again I actually heard a wood knock. It's
Speaker 1: impossible to describe how exciting it was to actually hear
Speaker 1: one for myself. I knew I had to come back.
Speaker 1: That night. At dusk, I came walking down the trail again.
Speaker 1: This time I had my little baseball bat and of
Speaker 1: course some flashlights. It was a lot spookier this time,
Speaker 1: but I got all the way to the campground without
Speaker 1: hearing anything, and I sat down on a bench and
Speaker 1: I listened for a while. It was all very quiet.
Speaker 1: Finally I got up off the bench and went to
Speaker 1: a nearby tree and gave it a good wat. It
Speaker 1: kind of echoed for a second. I dropped the bat
Speaker 1: and cut my hands around my ears to listen. After
Speaker 1: about fifteen to twenty seconds, there was a quiet, single
Speaker 1: I'm not sure how to describe it, a soft crunch,
Speaker 1: like a single careful footstep on a soft rotten log.
Speaker 1: Just that one soft, deliberate sound, like something saying quietly, Hey,
Speaker 1: you don't have to shout. I'm right over here. The
Speaker 1: hairs on my neck stood up. Wasn't very far away
Speaker 1: at all. I waited a few minutes and made another knock,
Speaker 1: more quietly this time, but there was no response. After
Speaker 1: listening a while more, I headed back to my truck.
Speaker 1: I'm sure you'll understand that I spent a lot of
Speaker 1: time shouting my flashlight around into the woods and back
Speaker 1: behind me on the way out. This was all that
Speaker 1: happened on that first visit, but it was enough to
Speaker 1: get me fired up to come back again the next spring.
Speaker 1: It was just amazing to go to a place reputed
Speaker 1: to have activity and then actually experience it myself. I
Speaker 1: have no proof of what might have made the wood knock,
Speaker 1: but I will say I did not see any other
Speaker 1: people in this back area for the entire three days
Speaker 1: that I was there, and my thinking was, when did
Speaker 1: a human ever make just one single knock? So the
Speaker 1: next June I was raring to goeh. I packed up
Speaker 1: my camping gear and headed back, hoping that I would
Speaker 1: have some more excitement. But little did I know what
Speaker 1: was coming this time. I drove right to the trail
Speaker 1: parking lot. It was only late morning, and I figured
Speaker 1: i'd go set up camp after walking the trail once first.
Speaker 1: I tried to drive quietly the last half a mile
Speaker 1: and made as little noise as I could, shutting the
Speaker 1: door when I got out. Hopefully I could surprise something
Speaker 1: and maybe hear another would not. I sat out, and
Speaker 1: before I was even one hundred yards down the trail,
Speaker 1: there was a huge loud crack. It was a sound
Speaker 1: to my left up on the ridge. I almost jumped
Speaker 1: out of my skin. It was so loud. It sounded
Speaker 1: like a whole tree being snapped like a pencil. My
Speaker 1: hair stood up and my stomach jumped up into my throat.
Speaker 1: I felt like I needed to be running, like right now.
Speaker 1: And there up on the ridge, I caught just a
Speaker 1: glimpse of something, something behind me the bushes. I could
Speaker 1: see the sun glinting off the shiny black fur through
Speaker 1: the holes between the leaves, and it was moving off
Speaker 1: into heavier cover. I only saw it for a second,
Speaker 1: no identifiable shape, but roughly three to four feet high
Speaker 1: and a little less in width. It took me a
Speaker 1: couple of minutes to calm down, But wow, did I
Speaker 1: just get bluff charged. I heard nothing before or after
Speaker 1: the tree crack. There were no sticks falling, no thuds
Speaker 1: or other noises. But what had I seen? I was
Speaker 1: absolutely elated. Whatever that was, it wasn't a human, and
Speaker 1: it wasn't a deer, and that is the only bigger
Speaker 1: animal that should be around the DNR. Information online was
Speaker 1: clear there were no bears in this whole corner of
Speaker 1: the state. And if it wasn't a bear, black shiny fur,
Speaker 1: you know, if I had to say from my gut
Speaker 1: what I saw any animal in the world, I would
Speaker 1: say from its color, size and the way it moved
Speaker 1: that it was something like a big chimpanzee and talk
Speaker 1: about classic bigfoot behavior breaking a tree and warning me
Speaker 1: and slinking off into the heavy brush. After I recovered,
Speaker 1: I continued down the trail. When I got to the campground,
Speaker 1: I was surprised to see a man and his young
Speaker 1: son setting up camp. I walked over to talk, and
Speaker 1: I found out they had parked at the other end
Speaker 1: of the trail and walked in, and they arrived about
Speaker 1: a half an hour before me. They hadn't seen anything
Speaker 1: strange on their way here. Let me give you the
Speaker 1: lay of the land here, because it's relevant. There's this
Speaker 1: long trail with parking at both ends and a campground
Speaker 1: in the middle. To the south, where last year's would
Speaker 1: not came from, is nothing, no trails know anything. And
Speaker 1: to the north from the campground there's a draw or
Speaker 1: a ravine that runs up the ridge and twists to
Speaker 1: the west. So the head of that ravine is up
Speaker 1: in the woods there behind the ridgetop on the west
Speaker 1: and the end I came in from. I'm thinking, what
Speaker 1: if the man and his son came walking down the
Speaker 1: trail and there's a young bigfoot near the campground who
Speaker 1: sees them coming, so not to be seen himself. He
Speaker 1: has to run into the woods to the north, even
Speaker 1: though where he really wants to go is to the south,
Speaker 1: where there are thick woods and where my wood knock
Speaker 1: came from. So he works his way up the draw
Speaker 1: to get away from the campground and then turns south,
Speaker 1: intending to cross over the top of the ridge and
Speaker 1: come down the hill across the trail and then make
Speaker 1: his way into the woods to the south. Only when
Speaker 1: he is coming down from the ridge top, dang, there's
Speaker 1: another human in the way. So he's ticked off and
Speaker 1: instinctively cracks the tree at me and SLINKs back into cover.
Speaker 1: It made a lot of sense, I thought, And that's
Speaker 1: all that happened on that trip. But let me tell
Speaker 1: you that was enough. I have never been I'm so
Speaker 1: startled or scared as I was when that loud noise
Speaker 1: made me think I was about to be attacked or
Speaker 1: squashed by something. My next visit was great too. I
Speaker 1: tried some gifting and had interesting results, but it's not
Speaker 1: directly relevant to the story, so I'll pass over that.
Speaker 1: One last spring, I again returned ready to try a
Speaker 1: few new things. But I did have a new piece
Speaker 1: of information I had found online. The DNR now said
Speaker 1: a few isolated black bears had been seen in this
Speaker 1: quarter of the state, presumably just passing through. I went
Speaker 1: to have a talk with the local ranger. After telling
Speaker 1: my story, we narrowed down the exact time I had
Speaker 1: been there, and he said that that month, the month
Speaker 1: when I experienced the tree cracking incident, a couple other
Speaker 1: hiking parties had reported seeing a black bear right along
Speaker 1: that specific trail. Furthermore, the very next month, mister bear
Speaker 1: wandered out into the highway and got himself killed by
Speaker 1: a car. He had then been stuffed and was on
Speaker 1: display at the county museum. I could even go see him.
Speaker 1: A little more. Research taught me that bears do occasionally
Speaker 1: crack trees while engaging in scent related behavior, although my
Speaker 1: experience was not typical at all, and when I visited
Speaker 1: mister bear he proved to be a little on the
Speaker 1: small side, which would be about right, But he was
Speaker 1: more of a cinnamon brown, not really a shiny black
Speaker 1: unless they both looked the same glinting in the bright sun.
Speaker 1: Apparently my bigfoot was the bigfoot that wasn't, Although to
Speaker 1: be fair, yes, what I saw was probably a bear,
Speaker 1: but where no bears were supposed to be doing something
Speaker 1: bears don't really do in exactly that way, and possibly
Speaker 1: changing color a bit in the process. There starting to
Speaker 1: be an awful lot of coincidences there. I want to
Speaker 1: share with you my brother's encounter with a sasquatch that
Speaker 1: happened around nineteen ninety near a town called Gary's Creek,
Speaker 1: which is near Fayetteville, North Carolina. I've always been fascinated
Speaker 1: with Bigfoot ever since I was a kid of seven
Speaker 1: or eight. I even went with my friend one night
Speaker 1: to see Sasquatch The Legend of Bigfoot at a local theater,
Speaker 1: and that movie scared the heck out of both of us.
Speaker 1: I recently rewatched the movie and I had to laugh
Speaker 1: because I could hardly believe I was ever scared of
Speaker 1: this chunk of geese. Oh what a way to describe
Speaker 1: a movie, a chunk of cheese. My family also knew
Speaker 1: of my fascination. I believe my dad was interested too,
Speaker 1: because every time there was a Bigfoot documentary on TV,
Speaker 1: he was right there watching it with my brother and I.
Speaker 1: My parents even gave me a copy of Peter Burns's
Speaker 1: Bigfoot Book for my day one year, and I must
Speaker 1: have read it a hundred times. The following incident happened
Speaker 1: around the year nineteen ninety. I was chatting with my
Speaker 1: mother on the phone, and she asked how I enjoyed
Speaker 1: a recent camping trip that I had taken with some friends.
Speaker 1: I made a joke about how we didn't see bigfoot,
Speaker 1: but we did have a great time regardless, to which
Speaker 1: she replied, well, your brother would be happy to learn that.
Speaker 1: When I asked her what she meant, she seemed surprised
Speaker 1: that he'd never told me. When I pressed her, she
Speaker 1: informed me that Larry, my brother, had an extraordinary bigfoot
Speaker 1: encounter a few years back. I was rather pod that
Speaker 1: Larry hadn't told me about this. He knew of my
Speaker 1: lifelong interest in this subject. I hung up with my
Speaker 1: mother and immediately called Larry, what's the big idea of
Speaker 1: being Harry hold out with the news of an encounter
Speaker 1: that you never told me about. He guessed correct that
Speaker 1: Mom had told me. He said he would go ahead
Speaker 1: and tell me, but to not ask any questions. Well,
Speaker 1: I thought that was strange, but I went along out
Speaker 1: of love and respect for my brother. And then he
Speaker 1: told me this story Larry was working as a delivery
Speaker 1: man for a local branch of a nationwide pizza chain.
Speaker 1: He was tasked to deliver some pizzas to a college
Speaker 1: fraternity house. Larry's car was in the shop at the time,
Speaker 1: so he was driving his boss's pickup truck. He delivered
Speaker 1: the pizzas and was driving back through Gray's Creek, North Carolina,
Speaker 1: on a road with overhanging oak trees. Bocephus was playing
Speaker 1: on the radio, he said, and the windows were down
Speaker 1: and he was enjoying the cool evening air. He heard
Speaker 1: a loud bang in the bed of the truck. He
Speaker 1: slammed on the brakes while looking in the rear view
Speaker 1: mirror and could see something black up against the rear window.
Speaker 1: When he got to a full stop, he saw something
Speaker 1: flailing around and it managed to work its way to
Speaker 1: the open tailgate and roll out of the truck bed.
Speaker 1: Larry sat there, stunned, looking in the rear view mirror,
Speaker 1: trying to figure out what this thing was. He stood
Speaker 1: up on two feet and it grew to seven feet tall.
Speaker 1: He tilted the mirror to see its face. Larry focused
Speaker 1: on the thing's face to see it looking right back
Speaker 1: at him. The face was human like and had a murderous,
Speaker 1: hate filled expression, and then it roared. Larry ain't no dummy.
Speaker 1: He turned and stomped on the gas because he knew
Speaker 1: that if this thing got its hands on him, it
Speaker 1: would absolutely tear him apart. Larry says he has no
Speaker 1: recollection of driving back to the pizza joint, just that
Speaker 1: the next thing he knew that he was getting out
Speaker 1: of the truck and his knees buckled and he would
Speaker 1: have fallen flat had he not managed to catch himself
Speaker 1: on the door's arm rest. He said he stayed squatted
Speaker 1: and gulping for air for several minutes, and then he
Speaker 1: went in trying to look like he was okay. Larry's
Speaker 1: boss looked at him and he knew something was wrong.
Speaker 1: He was pale and his eyes were big and wide open.
Speaker 1: Apparently Larry looked so bad that his boss drove him
Speaker 1: home that minute. He has no memory of the ride
Speaker 1: home or talking with his boss on the ride. My
Speaker 1: mother walked to Larry back to his room so he
Speaker 1: could lay down while my dad and Larry's boss looked
Speaker 1: at the truck. The part of the bed sides near
Speaker 1: the rear window were crumpled downwards, and there was blood
Speaker 1: in the bed, as well as some tufts of hair.
Speaker 1: They both picked up on the bad odor as well.
Speaker 1: Our father said it was a horrible smell. Mom and
Speaker 1: Dad sat up with Larry all night. He was obviously
Speaker 1: in a state of shock. They wanted to take him
Speaker 1: to the hospital, but Larry insisted that he was okay.
Speaker 1: He related his story to both my and dad a
Speaker 1: little while after, and they both believed him. My parents
Speaker 1: are not gullible people. They're well grounded and not prone
Speaker 1: to believe everything they hear. Trust me on that one.
Speaker 1: A year later, Mom and Dad, my wife and I
Speaker 1: and Larry and his family were vacationing together and I
Speaker 1: was excited that I get to ask him about his
Speaker 1: experience face to face. I sat down with a notepad
Speaker 1: and a pen. I was even planning to record the
Speaker 1: conversation with a new app on my phone. He looked
Speaker 1: at both and said, no way, I don't want you
Speaker 1: submitting this to any bigfoot organization, and furthermore, this is
Speaker 1: going to be the last time we talk about this.
Speaker 1: You got it. I agreed and asked some questions that
Speaker 1: help fill in the blanks in the account. I have
Speaker 1: a bit more to tell you about my brother. When
Speaker 1: he was relating what happened to me during our vacation,
Speaker 1: I saw both fear in his eyes and goosebumps rose
Speaker 1: on his arms more than once, and you can't fake that.
Speaker 1: What really hammered things home for me is the fact
Speaker 1: that my brother is a formal Special Forces operator and
Speaker 1: he served a tour over in the Sandbox. He just
Speaker 1: does not get rattled. To speak for myself, I never
Speaker 1: heard of a sasquatch dropping from a tree into a
Speaker 1: truck before. From Larry's report, he had a hunch it
Speaker 1: just lost its grip and somehow fell into the bed
Speaker 1: of the truck. I'd be willing to bet the sasquatch
Speaker 1: trackways people find that abruptly end is because these things
Speaker 1: take to the trees