Speaker 1: Back in October of two thousand and eight, I was
Speaker 1: twenty eight and I was in love. I had known
Speaker 1: her my entire life, but I didn't realize how I
Speaker 1: felt until after she moved away from Ontario, Canada, where
Speaker 1: we lived, to British Columbia. By the time I realized
Speaker 1: that she'd taken my heart with her, it was too late. Now,
Speaker 1: twelve years later, thanks to Facebook, we had reconnected and
Speaker 1: she was coming home for a visit. I felt like
Speaker 1: I'd waited a lifetime for that day to come. I'll
Speaker 1: never forget how beautiful she looked when we met. Time
Speaker 1: passed two quickly, and days turned into weeks, and we
Speaker 1: spent as much time together as we could. Before we
Speaker 1: knew it, she would be leaving in a week, and
Speaker 1: I knew I couldn't let her go again, And to
Speaker 1: my surprise and great joy, she agreed to stay. Thanksgiving
Speaker 1: week of that year, we arrived I did in British
Speaker 1: Columbia to get her things and officially move her back home.
Speaker 1: We flew in after spending a few days with her friends.
Speaker 1: We had a four day drive back home. Everything went
Speaker 1: well until the second day of our return trip. We
Speaker 1: got lost. How did I make this mistake, I wondered
Speaker 1: as I stared out over the landscape. We were almost
Speaker 1: out of the mountains by then, but it was getting late.
Speaker 1: I thought maybe if I drove a bit longer, we
Speaker 1: could make up some ground. It was a thought I
Speaker 1: would soon come to regret. Night was falling fast when
Speaker 1: I saw a sign that indicated the next town was
Speaker 1: sixty kilometers away. Dear God, another sixty kilometers, but I'm
Speaker 1: already so tired, I thought. Being the stubborn type, I
Speaker 1: pushed on. I can do this, I told myself, like
Speaker 1: the little engine that could. No sooner had I formed
Speaker 1: that thought than the first rain drive began to fall.
Speaker 1: I glanced upwards and whispered, how much more are you
Speaker 1: going to put me through? Lord? Ask a stupid question.
Speaker 1: I tried to set aside my frustrations. The love of
Speaker 1: my life was sleeping comfortably in the next seat to me.
Speaker 1: Even though we were lost at the moment, we had
Speaker 1: our whole lives ahead of us. I was a lucky man,
Speaker 1: and one day we would look back on this night
Speaker 1: and smile. Right. Five minutes later, the rain was coming
Speaker 1: down pretty steady, and we were no closer to finding
Speaker 1: our way back to where we should have been. One second,
Speaker 1: we were traveling along the lonely road while the wiper
Speaker 1: blades swished away the rain almost as fast as it
Speaker 1: blurred my view. And the next a pair of massive
Speaker 1: antlers appeared in my path. It was a moose, and
Speaker 1: then another, and then another. They were being chased by
Speaker 1: something I could never have imagined. I slammed on the brakes,
Speaker 1: but there was no time to stop. It was out
Speaker 1: of my hands. The tires slid across the wet pavement
Speaker 1: and crashed into the animals. The world spun wildly as
Speaker 1: my car flipped over and over and over again, landing
Speaker 1: on all four wheels. I don't remember being ejected from
Speaker 1: the vehicle, but I awoke to find myself lying on
Speaker 1: the ground, being pummeled by the driving rain. I had
Speaker 1: been knocked out at some point, and breathing hurt, but
Speaker 1: not breathing wasn't an option, and I gasped for air
Speaker 1: and winced at the pain with each breath, and then
Speaker 1: something growled. The memory of the last image before my
Speaker 1: foot buried the brake pedal came back to me, and
Speaker 1: it growled again, followed by a sort of wailing wah sound.
Speaker 1: The pain in shock of the accident was overwhelming, and
Speaker 1: as a former hockey player, I wasn't a stranger to
Speaker 1: the feeling. No one plays high without breaking something at
Speaker 1: some point. But this pain felt like it was coming
Speaker 1: from every part of my body. And then I remembered
Speaker 1: my girlfriend. No, God, no, I cried. I couldn't pull
Speaker 1: myself up, so I had to inch around to the
Speaker 1: other side of the car, crawling on my belly. It
Speaker 1: was an eternity during which I pleaded with God to
Speaker 1: let her be okay. As I rounded the passenger side,
Speaker 1: I saw her body on the ground thirty feet away,
Speaker 1: with something strange standing over her. At nine feet tall.
Speaker 1: The hair covered being looked like an ape man with
Speaker 1: shoulders as white as my car. Get away from her.
Speaker 1: I screamed at it, leave her alone, please. Through my yelling,
Speaker 1: I heard a strange waw wail again. Now I knew
Speaker 1: what was making it. The creature went down on all
Speaker 1: fours like a gorilla would do, and placed its hands
Speaker 1: on my girlfriend's belly and that whah again. Now I
Speaker 1: couldn't understand what this thing was doing to my girlfriend.
Speaker 1: I just wanted it to get away from her. Leave
Speaker 1: her alone, I screamed. I grabbed a piece of broken
Speaker 1: fender in tent on throwing it at the beast, but
Speaker 1: my arm was broken and it wouldn't do what I
Speaker 1: wanted it to do. All I knew was that I
Speaker 1: needed to chase this thing away before it hurt my
Speaker 1: girlfriend any more than she already was. I wanted to
Speaker 1: hurt it. I wanted it to feel the pain I felt.
Speaker 1: It stood up and released a long growl before taking
Speaker 1: one long hop and landing right next to me, with
Speaker 1: the ease of a child setting aside a discarded rag doll.
Speaker 1: It scooped me off the pavement, and it set me
Speaker 1: on the side of the road. It seemed to realize
Speaker 1: that I was hurt, because it didn't drop me. It
Speaker 1: placed me. Then it went back over to my girlfriend
Speaker 1: and carefully picked her up, cradled her in its arms
Speaker 1: like a newborn baby, and brought her over to set
Speaker 1: her beside me. I was trembling in pain and fear
Speaker 1: as I looked into the face of my girlfriend. She
Speaker 1: wasn't awake. Her eyes were half closed in that terrible
Speaker 1: way that said there was no one behind them now,
Speaker 1: And I turned my gaze back to the creature. We
Speaker 1: locked eyes for a moment, and I saw compassion there.
Speaker 1: I burst into tears, crying out her name over and over,
Speaker 1: unable to bear the physical pain or to understand the
Speaker 1: mental anguish. I was angry at the world and frustrated
Speaker 1: with my inability to fix this, and all I could
Speaker 1: do was cry all the while. The strange ape man
Speaker 1: stood over me and patiently waited, and finally it spoke,
Speaker 1: not in English or anything like a language I ever
Speaker 1: knew or heard. It wasn't yelling now. It knelt down
Speaker 1: and placed a hand on her leg and looked back
Speaker 1: over at me. Somehow, I think it knew that the
Speaker 1: love of my life was gone. Lights were coming from
Speaker 1: somewhere in the distance, and darkness fell over me. That
Speaker 1: was the last thing I remember until I woke up
Speaker 1: in the hospital. Police were all around me, and my
Speaker 1: mother had flown in from Ontario along with my brother.
Speaker 1: They were in the room. My girlfriend's mother was there too.
Speaker 1: An officer with the Royal Canadian Mounted Police said, sir,
Speaker 1: you were in a terrible accident. I want you to
Speaker 1: try to be calm now. I looked at my mother,
Speaker 1: hoping against hope, as I asked. The only question I
Speaker 1: needed to have an answer to is she did she
Speaker 1: make it mo The look on my mother's face told
Speaker 1: me all I needed to know. I spent the next
Speaker 1: three year months recovering my leg required sixty two staples.
Speaker 1: My arm, wrist, and several ribs were broken. The official
Speaker 1: police report doesn't include the part about the Bigfoot. I
Speaker 1: left that out. It wasn't until five years ago that
Speaker 1: I shared this with anyone. At that time, I sat
Speaker 1: down with both my family and hers, and I told
Speaker 1: them everything I had to get it out of my system.
Speaker 1: Keeping it hidden was making me sick now, worried that
Speaker 1: people would laugh at me, but bundling up inside was worse.
Speaker 1: I look back now, I can imagine that the bigfoot
Speaker 1: was chasing the moose and they just happened to cross
Speaker 1: the road at the same point we were. I don't
Speaker 1: harbor any hard feelings toward these creatures. He showed me
Speaker 1: empathy by placing my girlfriend beside me one last time. Now,
Speaker 1: this story doesn't have a happy ending, but I hope
Speaker 1: it will encourage others to share theirs. Keeping it inside
Speaker 1: does no good. I've wanted to give up many times
Speaker 1: since that awful night. The images and memories are always
Speaker 1: with me, but I keep moving forward, trying to live
Speaker 1: my life as best I can. I think my girlfriend
Speaker 1: would have wanted it this way. I was playing a
Speaker 1: game of creek jumping with four of my friends when
Speaker 1: I was twelve years old. We lived in Independence, Kentucky,
Speaker 1: and creek jumping was a game we played often back then.
Speaker 1: It was really just follow the leader, but it involved
Speaker 1: jumping over creek, so that's what we called it. We'd
Speaker 1: been out in the woods playing our game for over
Speaker 1: an hour when we heard something walking somewhere behind us,
Speaker 1: like it was following us. We'd gone pretty deep into
Speaker 1: the woods, but we figured it with some of the
Speaker 1: neighborhood kids who had followed us there well. Figuring that
Speaker 1: there was going to be an ambush, we picked up
Speaker 1: some sticks and began hitting them on the trees and yelling,
Speaker 1: if you want to play, come out and open you
Speaker 1: big chickens. Everything went quiet, maybe a little too quiet,
Speaker 1: but we were kids, we wouldn't have noticed that. After
Speaker 1: a few minutes, we figured that we had chased them off,
Speaker 1: and we went back to our game of creek jumping.
Speaker 1: Minutes later, we were a little deeper into the woods
Speaker 1: when a massive roar rang out that vibrated in our chests.
Speaker 1: I grew up in the Kentucky woods, and this was
Speaker 1: nothing like anything I'd ever heard. We froze in our
Speaker 1: tracks with two of my friends on one side of
Speaker 1: the creek and the rest of us on the other,
Speaker 1: and we looked up the hill on our side of
Speaker 1: the creek to see a nine foot tall nightmare standing
Speaker 1: between two trees at the top, shaking and growling at us.
Speaker 1: Fear shot through us as one of my buddy's gasped,
Speaker 1: what the hell is that? My other buddy on the
Speaker 1: other side was so scared that he pee his pants.
Speaker 1: Come on, let's get out of here. One of the
Speaker 1: other friends yelled from across the creek, and the three
Speaker 1: of us on our side sprang into action, and we
Speaker 1: jumped across to the other side. As soon as our
Speaker 1: feet hit the ground, it let out another ear shattering roar,
Speaker 1: and then it snapped the tree off like they were twigs,
Speaker 1: and they threw the trees at us. We were panicked
Speaker 1: and terrified and ran as fast as we could with
Speaker 1: this thing following behind us. Well. No one looked back,
Speaker 1: but we could hear it crashing through the trees like
Speaker 1: a bulldozer. We didn't stop running until we came to
Speaker 1: a country road, where we had to stop and catch
Speaker 1: our breath. By then we were all crying. Now I
Speaker 1: have to admit I thought I was going to die
Speaker 1: that day. We knew it wasn't far behind us, so
Speaker 1: we started walking up the road as fast as our
Speaker 1: exhausted lungs would allow, and our only hope, we thought,
Speaker 1: was if someone came along and gave us a ride.
Speaker 1: All the way up that road, it paralleled us, but
Speaker 1: we didn't see it. It stayed inside the tree line,
Speaker 1: but we could hear it huffing and puffing and tearing
Speaker 1: up trees. We finally came to a gas station where
Speaker 1: one of my friends called us mother to come and
Speaker 1: pick us up. We told her what happened, but she
Speaker 1: didn't believe us. When I got home, I told my
Speaker 1: mother and father, but they didn't believe me either, and
Speaker 1: after that we never spoke about it again. My friends
Speaker 1: still don't speak about it, except to admit that it
Speaker 1: gave them all nightmares. But we didn't play in the
Speaker 1: woods after that. It was another four years before I
Speaker 1: stepped foot inside that tree line. One thing I do
Speaker 1: know is that that thing wasn't human, and if it
Speaker 1: had wanted to kill us, it could have easily caught
Speaker 1: us and done just that. My siblings called me Buckshot.
Speaker 1: I guess you can tell by that name that I've
Speaker 1: spent most of my life in the woods hunting everything
Speaker 1: from white tailed deer to turkey, to coyotes and hogs.
Speaker 1: Because of that, I've also spent many an early morning
Speaker 1: and night listening to the sounds of mother nature. Where
Speaker 1: I'm from, coyotes are pretty common and black bears aren't
Speaker 1: unheard of. We also have black panthers or black cougars here,
Speaker 1: but don't tell the authorities. They ain't figured it out yet.
Speaker 1: I know I haven't seen or heard everything, but I've
Speaker 1: always been pretty comfortable with my knowledge of Mother Nature.
Speaker 1: That's why I was so shook up by what I
Speaker 1: heard one night a few weeks back. I was sitting
Speaker 1: in my barn taking a rest before heading to the house,
Speaker 1: when out of the blue, I heard an extremely loud
Speaker 1: roar or I guess you might say it was a yell. Well,
Speaker 1: whichever it was, it was something I've never heard before.
Speaker 1: I've heard everything that might have come close to it,
Speaker 1: but this wasn't any of them. I'm sure of that.
Speaker 1: There's something else. I'm sure of. Whatever made that noise
Speaker 1: was huge. The sound repeated itself three more times. With
Speaker 1: each successive yell, my heart beat a little faster, until
Speaker 1: it felt like it was beating out of my chest.
Speaker 1: I retreated to the house as quickly as I could,
Speaker 1: since then I carry whenever I step outside, especially late
Speaker 1: at night, So naturally I told my dad and sister
Speaker 1: and nephew about it, and just as naturally, they laughed
Speaker 1: and picked fun at me for it. After a week
Speaker 1: of being mocked by them, we were all sitting out
Speaker 1: in the yard one night, enjoying the evening air. It
Speaker 1: was getting to be around eleven forty pm, and I
Speaker 1: was half listing for another yell and half hoping I
Speaker 1: didn't hear one. Just as my dad opened his mouth
Speaker 1: to say something, that loud, bellowing howl came from the
Speaker 1: woodline along the backfield of my property. In the daylight,
Speaker 1: we could have seen where it came from, but at
Speaker 1: night it was too dark. As that sound echoed across
Speaker 1: the barnyard, everyone went still. My dad frozen midward, and
Speaker 1: his eyes bulged from his face. We all sat looking
Speaker 1: at each other as that same sound came from the
Speaker 1: bowels of the woods a few more times over the
Speaker 1: next several minutes, and no one spoke a word, probably
Speaker 1: because no one needed to. That effectively ended our night.
Speaker 1: The next night, we regrouped in the barnyard, with everyone
Speaker 1: anxious to talk about what happened the night before. As
Speaker 1: my dad and siblings discussed the loudness and the possible
Speaker 1: source of the sounds, my nephew and I searched the
Speaker 1: Internet on our smartphones, looking for animal sounds that might
Speaker 1: explain what we'd heard. We searched for several hours, but
Speaker 1: we came up empty. Nothing came close to what we'd heard.
Speaker 1: Then we stumbled across the site that had bigfoot sounds.
Speaker 1: They were remarkably close to what we'd heard. After hearing
Speaker 1: those recordings, we all looked at each other and came
Speaker 1: to the same collective conclusion that thing roaring in my
Speaker 1: woods had to be a bigfoot. A few days after that,
Speaker 1: my nephew and I were walking in a field on
Speaker 1: my property when he came across an unusual track in
Speaker 1: the soil. He called me over to look at it.
Speaker 1: What I saw led me to conclude that it was
Speaker 1: definitely a bigfoot. The print was very human in appearance,
Speaker 1: except that it was six or seven inches wide at
Speaker 1: the top and four to five inches wide at the heel.
Speaker 1: I could see the toes and the curve of the
Speaker 1: arch and the foot. My heart was racing as fast
Speaker 1: as it was that first night. I've always believed in
Speaker 1: the possibility of their existence, but I never thought I
Speaker 1: would actually see a print or hear one yell. A
Speaker 1: few nights passed and I was standing out on my
Speaker 1: front porch to catch a bit of fresh air before
Speaker 1: turning in for the night, and from the woods across
Speaker 1: the road from my house, I heard that roar again.
Speaker 1: Having heard it several times now, I wasn't so quick
Speaker 1: to retreat. It was a little different this time, more
Speaker 1: like a squeal of pain with a hint of a
Speaker 1: roar in it. Fear gripped me, but I was determined
Speaker 1: to stand my ground. My wife heard it and came
Speaker 1: outside to see what it was. This was the first
Speaker 1: time she'd heard it, and I could see fear and
Speaker 1: worry in her eyes as she stood there and shot.
Speaker 1: Two nights later, my son and I were out checking
Speaker 1: my grapes at eight pm, and I was studying how
Speaker 1: many grapes were producing when I heard that familiar sound
Speaker 1: in the distance. I marveled at the power it had,
Speaker 1: even from so far away. With white eyes, my son
Speaker 1: looked at me and he said, is that what you've
Speaker 1: been hearing? And I nodded my answer as he turned
Speaker 1: to run for the house. Come inside, he called over
Speaker 1: his shoulder, and I followed on his heels. A couple
Speaker 1: of more days went by with no unusual sounds from
Speaker 1: the woods. I had just gotten comfortable with the idea
Speaker 1: that we wouldn't hear any more of those yells when
Speaker 1: as my wife and I were lying in bed that night,
Speaker 1: somewhere between awake and dream land, and a loud bellow
Speaker 1: came through our bedroom window and rattled our walls. We
Speaker 1: both immediately sat up right in bed and looked around,
Speaker 1: neither one knowing what to say. All we could do
Speaker 1: was stare at each other when another loud roar shook
Speaker 1: the window glass. After that, all was silent for the
Speaker 1: rest of the night. It was just enough to keep
Speaker 1: either one of us from getting a good night's sleep,
Speaker 1: and we spent the rest of the night, sitting up
Speaker 1: waiting and listening. By now I was contemplating looking for
Speaker 1: more evidence despite my internal struggle between fear and curiosity,
Speaker 1: I decided to take a walk along my property line
Speaker 1: at the edge of the woods. This time I found
Speaker 1: two different sets of prints. One was fifteen inches long
Speaker 1: and the other was ten inches. Both were very wide,
Speaker 1: and I realized then that I was going to have
Speaker 1: to accept that whatever this was, it had chosen to
Speaker 1: make my property its home. Judging by the size of
Speaker 1: the Prince and the strength of its roar, there wasn't
Speaker 1: going to be much I could do about it. I
Speaker 1: told my siblings about the Prince the first chance I got.
Speaker 1: They all ran over to look at them, but I
Speaker 1: could tell that they were struggling with the same internal
Speaker 1: battle between curiosity and fear that had me tied at knots.
Speaker 1: I've lived on this property for the last six years.
Speaker 1: Before that, I left five miles from here. Now I've
Speaker 1: lived in this general area my entire thirty one years.
Speaker 1: Never have I heard anything like this. I'm sure my
Speaker 1: siblings could all say the same. That night, after I
Speaker 1: showed my siblings the Prince, we all decided to wait
Speaker 1: up to see if we might hear it again. The neighbor,
Speaker 1: who was living three houses down, was having a shin
Speaker 1: dick that night, and around nine pm the creature in
Speaker 1: the woods let loose with a long, bellowing yell, and
Speaker 1: the neighbor heard it. How do I know that he
Speaker 1: heard it? Not two seconds later all of his friends
Speaker 1: started leaving in a hasty manner. The fire went from
Speaker 1: lighting up his yard to darkness, and I laughed a bit,
Speaker 1: but I understood their fear. So far, it's the last
Speaker 1: time I've heard that yell.