Speaker 1: Okay. The writer's name is Todd, and here's what he writes,
hold on to your weaves on. I got a strange
story from Ohio to tell you. I hope someone who
was in that campground that night, or who lives in
the area and heard it, will remember the event and
write in or comment. It happened at a campground with
a lake just outside of Wilmington, Ohio, during the summer
vacation of nineteen eighty three. I was almost eighteen and
my girlfriend was seventeen at the time. Today, Becky and
I have been married for thirty five years. That's cool, man.
That's an awesome that I could end right there and
just be happy for you. Todd, that's awesome. But let's
get on with your story. The campground consisted of thirty
to fifty permanent camsites for trailers in RV I think,
and there was also an area to the west end
for overnight tent campers. On the south side of the
lake was some woods that wrapped around to the east
and the west. There were forty yards of open area
to the north side of the lake that reached down
to a little beach area, with the rest of the
north shore set aside for fishing access. We were there
with my best friend, John, who was nineteen, and his girlfriend, Judy,
who was twenty one, and as such was the designated
purchaser of alcohol for our group. They've been married now
for thirty six years. Oh man, that's another great. That's awesome.
John and Judy thirty six years. That's great. Judy's dad
and older brother had adjacent permanent camp sites at the campground,
and since they were going to the races that weekend,
the trailers were available. Because Becky and I were the
only other couple in our little group of about a
dozen friends, we were invited to join John and Judy
for romantic weekend getaway. Judy worked at Stump's grocery store
at the Forest Park Plaza, so we picked her up
there on Friday night when she finished her shift. While
we were there, we purchased the supplies that we would
need for the weekend, and then we headed out. We
arrived a couple of hours before sundown and set up camp.
The campground was packed with activity. Kids were riding their
bites on the gravel road that snaked its way through
the park, people were walking their dogs, and men were
riding around in their golf carts visiting neighbors. Several people
stopped by to check up on Judy and ask about
her dad and her brother. Off to the races was
the standard reply. Soon we grilled our dinner and the
girls had gotten the trailers ready for the night. After that,
we all sat around the campfire, ring, swapping stories, enjoying
each other's company, and relaxing to the sounds of the
southern Ohio summer night. The bugs, the frogs, and the
nighttime birds created a wondrous symphony of calming sound. A
couple of hours after dark, we all decided it was
time to turn in for the night. Before we went
to bed, we had to tidy up our campsite, and
John and I were churning the fire with a shovel.
Went out of nowhere, and I mean like out of
left field. We heard from way off in the distance
what sounded like a woman's screaming, bloody murder. It was
like her arms were being ripped from her body. John
looked at me as if to say, man, what are
we hearing. The girls came over with us with puzzled
expressions on their faces. Twenty seconds into the scream. It
changed to what sounded like a baby crying. That lasted
for another twenty seconds, and then there was nothing. We
could hear the normal night sounds all around us, but
the screaming stopped. The other campers burst out into chatter,
What was that? What the hell that? And a bounty
of other anxious comments could be heard from every direction.
We were certainly adding our share. The entire campground was
a buzz with excitement and activity for another ten or
fifteen minutes before everyone began to calm down and turn
in for the night. We decided whatever it was, it
was far enough away that it wasn't going to bother us.
John and Judy took her parents' trailer, and Becky and
I were in Judy's brother's trailer. Once inside, Becky and
I were winding down, smoking a cigarette and having a
pretty lively discussion about what had just happened. What exactly
did you hear? She asked, and then before I could answer,
she added, I heard a woman screaming in distressed. Then
it changed into like a baby crying. Yeah, that's exactly
what I heard. I said, Well, what do you think
it was? I think it was a bobcat, she said, again,
not letting me answer. You know they're still in Ohio. Well,
I quickly answered, well, I don't know about that. Their
mountain lines down in the Smokies, and with the warm weather,
maybe one of them made its way up here into Ohio.
We both pondered that for a moment before she asked,
how did it cross the Ohio River? Then he crossed
over the Brent Spence Bridge like everyone else. I quipped, Oh,
you're funny. I suppose he did it during rush hour too,
she exclaimed, as she threw her shirt at me. Well
he did sound like one peste off cat, I laughed.
We began to ponder again, and she climbed into bed.
A stream of ideas came to me, and I said,
you know, maybe some local has an exotic cat as
a pet. Or we aren't too far from Cincinnati. Maybe
some rich guy or Reds player, even better, a Bengals
player bought themselves a big cat and it escaped. Her
reply was wouldn't we have heard about that on the news? Well,
not necessarily, I answered. If they didn't have the right
perm to own an exotic pet and it escape, they
wouldn't want to get into trouble, so they ain't gonna
call anybody. Remember, Shannon, her family had to move to
Michigan because Ohio passed that law where you have to
have a permit to own exotic pets. Her family had
those two cheetahs, but they didn't get the permits. Oh yeah,
you're right, she said. Now get your butt in bed,
now see there. Don't you feel better about it? And
all I answered, returning a grin. Yes, come to bed already,
she groaned. I had no sooner turned off the light
when I heard the faint sound of a baby crying.
I turned to Becky in and saw her eyes getting
bigger and knew she was hearing it too. Before either
of us could speak a word, the sound changed to
the woman's screaming bloody murder. Again a cat. Remember it's
just a cat, I spoke up quickly. It's a very
big cat, she added from inside the trailer. The sound
was faint, but we could still hear as it changed
into something like a jungle cat's growl, and then it
became more like a lion's roar, and then it changed
yet again to what we have come to refer to
as a mix of an angry King Kong versus Godzilla
with eyes as big as saucers, and our jaws dropped
to our chests. We stared at each other for what
felt like an hour, but it was in reality only
a few seconds. What the hell was that? Becky whispered.
Before I could answer, the damn thing started up again.
This time it started with the King Kong versus Godzilla roar,
followed by a bear's roar. I burst out of our
trailer to find John poking his head out of his
The growl had already changed to that of a lion
and now morphing into that of a jungle cat's growl.
When it changed back into the screaming woman, John muttered,
what is that? The sound faded back into that of
a baby crying, and John came out to stand beside me.
The campground was beginning to come to life again. Someone yelled,
can someone shut that thing up? Someone else said, what
is that? Further down still, another camper asked, did you
hear that? Standing outside? It sounded louder and closer than
when we heard it earlier that night, though it still
seemed to be coming from the same general direction, which
was southwest of the campgrounds. We stood there for several seconds,
lost in thought as we anticipated the next sound. How
far away do you think it is? John asked, startling
me back to reality. And do you have any ideas Sherlock?
He added, before I could answer. Well, sarcastically calling me
Sherlock was a running gag between us, brought on by
my frequent use of the phrase elementary, my dear Watson elementary.
But this time he sounded nervous. Back in. I thought
it might be a big cat, like a bobcat, or
a mountain lion, told him a mountain lion in Ohio.
I was sure he was going to add or you nuts,
but I cut him off by adding, or it could
be someone who owns a big cat, Remember Shannon. He
looked puzzled for a moment before remembering and saying, oh, yeah,
the girl with the cool looking jungle cats. They were cheetahs,
I corrected him. Have you ever heard anything like that before?
Those parts that sound like a bear, I mean the
big gorilla or something, he asked. I noted a bit
of quiver in his voice. It was a regular king Kong,
I said. Unwilling to give a direct answer, we snapped
our heads back to the southwest as the baby crying
sound started up again. The depth and duration of the
calls was unbelievable. It wasn't like it was one sound,
take a breath, and then another. It was one continuous,
deep call, lasting anywhere from fifty seconds to two minutes,
transforming from baby to woman to animal and one breath.
The long capacity of whatever was out there had to
be massive, and the range was incomprehensible. John and I
stood there looking at each other mentally repeating the same question.
Everyone was asking what was this thing? It still sounded
like it was pretty far off in the distance. I
was guessing around five to ten miles away. Alarming, yes,
but I didn't feel like we were in any danger.
That's why John's next statement caught me off guard. Man,
we have shotguns in the trailers and spotlights if we
need them. Let me show you where yours are in
the trailer. We went inside and he showed me where
the shotgun and box of shells were, and then he
pulled out a spotlight and we made sure the battery
was working. It was one of those old nineteen sixties
handheld lights made with the VW Beetle headlight attached to
a metal battery box that had a handle on it.
I don't remember the gauge of the shotgun, but I
do remember that it held five shells and it was
a pump action. John, Becky and I then went outside
and stood for twenty minutes. It had been half an
hour or more since we last heard its call when
John broke the silence with well, I'll see you guys
in the morning. Goodnight. Hey, I'm only a year younger
than you, old man, I replied. John turned and went
back to his trailer with a smile on his face.
When we went back inside, Becky peppered me with questions
about what John and I thought it was. I'm not
sure how long we stayed up, but I can say
one thing for sure, the night no longer had any
romantic feeling. I don't know how long it was until
we heard it again, but I would venture to guess
it was around an hour later when King Kong started
up again. By the time it had worked its way
to the Jungle Cat, I was out the door with
my shoes on, a shotgun in one hand and the
spotlight in the other. It was no longer just a
faint sound inside the trailer. Outside it was even louder,
and now it sounded like it was just across the lake.
John was out his door almost as fast as I was,
and he was wearing his shoes and carrying his gun
and his light as well. The whole campground seemed to
be awake, and people were coming out of their trailers
in r OF's and gathering in small groups. John and
I walked down to the road as the call wound
down to the baby crying. That sounds just like it's
across the lake, John said, confirming my earlier thought. We
were standing at the edge of the road closest to
the lake, where there was mostly open field. The woods
across the lake were silent as a grave. Gone was
the music of the night dwellers. The insects, the frogs,
in any other wildlife all seemed to be holding their
collective breath. We could hear the people from the campground
behind us talking and opening and closing doors, and after
a few minutes, a couple in their thirties and a
man in his fifties joined us where we stood. We
formed a little group and made our introductions, and then
quickly turned our conversation to the same questions we'd all
been asking for hours. Another man walked past us and
called to us, it's a banshee. Man, I tell you,
it's a banshee. We all chuckled nervously but swallowed our laughter.
When all hell broke loose across the lake. The baby
crying started again, followed by the cracking of wood. It
sounded like a bulldozer was tearing through that timber. In
my lifetime I have heard and seeing deer, elk, moose,
and bears crashed through the forest. Nothing, and I mean nothing,
even come close to the cracking of wood that we
heard that night. John and I spun around and flipped
on our life. As the call changed from the baby
crying to the woman screaming. We could clearly see the
trees and bushes shaking, but we couldn't see what it
was making the commotion. It was coming from the southwest
and heading east. By the time the call had made
its usual gamut of jungle cat to lion to bear
to King Kong versus Godzilla, it had made it halfway
to the bottom stretch of the lake. The guy who
walked by with the bansheeth theory ran past us at
a dead sprint back to its trailer. Oh God, that's funny. Okay,
I'm not laughing or ridiculing anyone. Just want to be
clear there. I just thought that sentence was funny. I
do have a sense of humor. We could still see
the trees and bushes swaying back and forth as the
thing made its way to the east side of the lake.
The woman in our little group said to no one
in particular, my god, what is that thing? And then
as an afterthought, she added, and what are we going
to do about it? It wasn't screaming anymore, but we
could still see it crashing through the woods. It was
halfway to the road that dead ended in the woods
on the east side of the lake, but there it
could easily run up the east side road about one
hundred yards or so, right into the campground. We were
all sizing up the situation and formulating possible outcomes. Not
more than a year before that night, I had watched
the movie Rambo. Furthermore, I was a big fan of
Billy Jack movies from the nineteen seventies. As if that
wasn't enough, I saw myself as a hoodlum from the
main streets of Dayton, Ohio. So it should come as
no surprise that I was thinking John and I should
head over to the east side road, cut this thing
off at the past, and teach it a lesson by
feeling it full of lead. I was just about to
make that very suggestion when John said, I don't know
about you, guys, but we're getting the hell out of
here now. The rest of us were so startled by
John's words that we just stood there dumbfounded as he
walked away. A second later, we sprung into action, each
of us heading back to our respective trailers. I didn't
catch up with John until we were almost to the trailers,
and the girls were dressed and standing outside, and they
were waiting for us. Get the stuff, pat girls, he barked,
We're out of here. They were way ahead of us.
All we had to do was put away the guns,
lock up the trailers, and jump in the car and go.
It must have taken us a good twenty minutes to
get out of the campground because of the traffic, it
looked more than half of the campers were heading home.
We kept a watchful eye on the East Road as
we sat in the long line of cars but nothing
ever came out of the woods. Once we'd answered all
the girls questions, the ride home was pretty quiet. We
never heard anything about it on the news, and after
a week or so, the frenzied questions and the retelling
of the story to our group of friends died down.
Over the years, beck and I have shared this story
with various new friends that we've met. A couple of
weeks ago, I shared a Dixie Cryptid video with Becky
and she suggested that i'd send the story. So here
it is, and we're sticking to it. There were a
lot of people in that campground that night, and a
lot of them left. Not to mention all the people
who lived in a twenty square mile radius of the campground.
We would love to hear from anyone who experienced those
strange calls in the summer of nineteen eighty three. And
one other thing. I often wonder what would happen that
night if I had spoken up first with my Billy
Jack plan. I guess we'll never know, Thank goodness, Oh man,
what a great story. Nobody was heard. Everybody was just scared,
and you heard a really unique sound. I mean, it
sounded like it went on all Night Todd, But I
don't know what else to say about this story. He's
this man obviously has a sense of humor, unlike some
of the really curmudgeon bigfoot people in the bigfoot community.
But this guy has a sense of humor and he
can laugh. He can actually laugh at himself. And I
love these kind of stories. I really appreciating I really
appreciate him sending it folks. I have Will Jevining and
his sidekick Tom on the line, and we're going to
ask them some questions and just dive right into Instead
of this being one long interview, we're going to take
specific topics and give them five to ten minutes to
discuss it, and we're gonna chop those up and put
those in podcasts with stories throughout the month. And I'm
really excited about this because sometimes these interviews go so
long that people tend to drop off after thirty or
forty five minutes. So what I want to do is
try to mix up a little bit of authentic stuff
and then put some of my bullcrap at the end.
That's what so to kind of give my podcast just
a little bit more of a serious tone and so
that you can hear from people who actually study these things,
which I don't. Will and Tom, thank you for joining us.
Speaker 2: Well, Hi everybody, and Cam, I sure appreciate it. It's
a real honor. Tom is coming back on in a minute.
He had to reboot his computers having some issues. All
you are here, Yeah, yeah, I'm on, So Cam, thanks
again and really appreciate it.
Speaker 1: And hello to everybody out there.
Speaker 2: This is actually it's kind of a treat for us.
This is something different and it's going to be a
lot of fun.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it should be fun and we'll see how it goes,
and I think it'll people will love hearing from you.
So let's dive into what people want to hear. And here,
let me just real briefly say this. My videos and
podcas has get twenty or thirty thousand views, and I
would say probably thirty percent of those are people who
are interested in the Bigfoot topic, and the other sixty
or seventy percent are people who just enjoy stories and
this is a bit for them. This is for people
to learn a little bit about what people have learned
and studied really throughout their whole lives and they're actually
consumed with the study of this creature. And I want
you to hear what some people have found. So let's
get started. I put out a community post today I
ask people for questions. I was trying to get five,
and we have I think we have one hundred and
fifty responses. So thank you to the audience for doing that.
That's very nice of you. One question that pops up
over and over, and I was reluctant to ask Will
and Tom this question is that this Nephelm theory are
the Bigfoot the Nephilum from the Old Testament. And I
was a little apprehensive to ask that because I think
I know just the hot points of Will's opinions on
some of these things based on experience in his study.
But he's more than willing to talk about this and
I appreciate it. So Will and Tom, you guys, let
us know what you think about the Nephilum theory.
Speaker 2: Well, you know, I get asked that pretty often myself,
and I tell people know. And the reason they tell
him know is because when you go back, I mean,
you have to take a look at the King James Bible.
It's actually kind of a watered down version of previous
writings that they put into that. Now if you go
to Ivan Sanderson's book. Ivan Sanderson was a zoologist. For
those who don't know who he was. He wrote a
book called The Bottle of Stone, Manlage and Come to Life,
published in nineteen sixty one. Even a book that old,
it has some great information in it. And in the
chapter seventeen, actually page three seventy nine, there's a couple
of paragraphs that address this specifically. So you know, pardon
me if I butcher this a little bit, and some
of the pronunciations, I'm not even gonna try. Maybe I'll
spell the name, but it says in here Nephelim is
often translated giants. But the commentators, and this was written
by a Jewish scholar by the way, who was a
friend of Sanderson's and let him put it in a book,
the commentators tell us that they were so called because
men would fall, and the word nephelim, the first part
of that is nofel n oph e l, and that
means they would fall in their faces with fright at
the sight of them. So it wasn't actually giant, it
was it was the appearance and the actual behavior that
they would do. So then it goes into some other abbreviations.
I'm not sure what they are. But then they talk
about the Gibbraum GiB or m were later on referred
to as the Gibbori and I'm not even going to
try to pronounce this a y i D and are
reputed to have been as tall as a tree in
contrast to the shambling Nephlom. So we have two different
types of beings here. The second one, the jiroal t
s A y i D means the mighty ones of
the hunt, so they were not the nephylum. Our main
concern here must be, however, the rest of the creatures
who terrified the Israelites during the exodus, during Egypt and
their period of wandering in the Sinai desert. These were
the shidiam S h e I d i M or
the destroyers who had been known to the patriarchs Abraham
Isaaca Jacob Jacob as the serum or the hairy ones.
So we're talking about two completely different things. And there's
in other passages they talk about, you know, the nephylum,
and they had actually specific measurements of beds, I mean
beds like men slept in things like that, and the
other creatures are something entirely different. So when people refer
to the Sasquatch as the four or the descendants of
the Nephilum, they're not. If you look at the context
of these ancient writings, it.
Speaker 1: Doesn't make sense to me. I'm not that well versed
in the Old Testament. I'm kind of a New Testament guy.
I probably should be more so, but the New Testament
seems to be more pertinent to this day in time
or to what I need to pay attention to. However,
even when I did read the Old Testament, I just
kind of skipped over some of that stuff because it
was like, I don't even understand what this is. So,
but that's a that's a great explanation, and I so
you tend to line up with his way of thinking
on that, I would assume.
Speaker 2: I think it's a more correct assumption, and that's what
Sanderson is doing. You're saying, well, look, you know, on
one hand, you have the Nephilum, and you have also
these other creatures who more closely resemble what we're talking
about out in the forest today.
Speaker 1: That leaves the possibility open that it is an ancient species.
Speaker 2: Very much so. In fact, I've got plenty of Native
American friends who've told me point blank that the creatures
were here before their people came to the lands that
they settled on the continent.
Speaker 3: A few years ago, I had the opportunity to talk
with John Bendernagel, obviously before he died, was with a
Ouiji board, and when in our conversation I asked him
with the most convincing evidence he felt was in support
of the existence of Bigfoot, and he cited footprints. I
can't argue with him, especially those prints that show dermal ridges.
But I do have a question about the fact that
some of the plaster casts I've seen are squared off toes,
some have an offset big toe. In the South they
only have three toes. What is that about? Why why
are there so many different foot formations.
Speaker 2: I have to tell you, I'm not real sure about
this three toad stuff. In fact, even even in the
movie The Legend of Boggy Creek, where they incorrectly stated
in one point there was some tracks that were three
toad I know somebody who was actually there and helped
film that, and he said, the tracks are actually five
toad prints. Yeah, most of the time they're five toad
now what you're seeing some of that. Now, there's going
to be two things going on their variation within the species.
So like with humans, no two are identical, you know
what I mean. So, and a good example is that
if you've ever tried to wear somebody else's shoes, how
uncomfortable they feel because their feet are slightly different shaped
and wear differently. Then there are some subcategories of creatures.
And what I was told by sirs, they can't reveal
that there were there were two main groupings, and for
the sake of conversation, we'll call him group A and
group b uh, And then there were two subgroupings in
each one of those. So you're going to get some variations.
And it makes sense if you've got a breeding population
over a large region, let's say the United States in Canada,
there are geographical barriers to keep, you know, one one
regional group from interbreeding with another one. So over time
and evolution, there's some different changes that occur. So, and
you see with other animal species.
Speaker 3: So well that leads to another question. Then, so you're
saying there are roughly four subspecies of bigfoot, four groupings, Yeah, okay,
and what are those? I mean, can you use.
Speaker 2: There a name for them, Well, I call them, and
people have sort of latched onto it since then. I
called there's two. The two groups in species Group A
would be the Type one and Type four. The Type
one is what you see in the Patterson film and
the Type four is more like what you'd see in
pictures with the Minnesota iceman. And what what I why
they're in that category is based on their teeth. Primarily,
the teeth have no canines there. They're blocky similar ours,
but there's some size differences and some other configurations that
are different between those two groupings. Then the other side
of the house, the let's say the A this is
the A grouping and the B grouping, which predominantly in
the South, and the Type two. They have very prominent canines.
They look a lot like the ones you see in
the Patterson film, but they're more often or as often
as they are bipedally. They're moving in all fours and
they're more you'll see more in groupings. And then there's
the other one that has actually kind of a baboon face,
almost a snout, and that one resides primarily along the
Mississippi River drainage basin that's a type three.
Speaker 3: Is that the one that they do? Some people call
it a gugwy or a gugway.
Speaker 2: Probably, yes, Well, are you familiar.
Speaker 3: That's a new term to me. I have no idea
what that is, to be honest with you. I mean,
I honestly, I've seen some researchers group it with Dogman
and others research it. I'm sorry, not research it, group
it with it's bigfoot, And I have no idea.
Speaker 1: It's pretty vicious, that's the that's the creature everybody writes
the fictional books about, right.
Speaker 3: I think gugway means space eater, right, But that's an
Algonquian term, I think.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I mean, if you can take a creature and
make him main and you have to kill him and
he's the villain, that's always a big seller.
Speaker 3: So yeah, it is