Speaker 1: Wow, I have one for you that happened to me
Speaker 1: in the backwoods of Arkansas back in the early nineties.
Speaker 1: I don't mind if you use my first name, but
Speaker 1: let's keep my last name between you and I. My
Speaker 1: name is Eli, and this is my story. In nineteen
Speaker 1: ninety four, I was thirteen years old. I used to
Speaker 1: stay at my grandparents' house, a lot out in the
Speaker 1: very rural area in southeastern Arkansas. It was a series
Speaker 1: of networked dirt roads to get to their house. The
Speaker 1: closest neighbor lived a mile and a half away, and
Speaker 1: the closest town was ten miles down the road. It's
Speaker 1: in the middle of farmland and it's mostly woods. They
Speaker 1: had lived in this house since my mother was a child.
Speaker 1: A general store served the people in the area. It
Speaker 1: was a two mile walk from my grandmother's place. An
Speaker 1: old lady ran the store. Her and her husband had
Speaker 1: the store on the front of their house. They lived
Speaker 1: in the back. My grandmother asked me if I wanted
Speaker 1: to walk to the general store and get her a
Speaker 1: few things. She gave me some money and I headed
Speaker 1: that way. It was early in the day and I
Speaker 1: had plenty of time to get back before dark, which
Speaker 1: I always made sure to do when I was out
Speaker 1: roaming about. Things can get creepy out in the backwoods
Speaker 1: of Arkansas after nightfall. It's a darkness unlike most people
Speaker 1: who have lived primarily in the cities or towns have
Speaker 1: ever experienced. I was easily distracted at that age, and
Speaker 1: I stopped at a creek on the way, and I
Speaker 1: stayed too long, catching crawdads and throwing rocks in the water,
Speaker 1: and then I piddled all the way to the store.
Speaker 1: It was getting late and I picked up my pace.
Speaker 1: By the time I left the store, it was getting dark.
Speaker 1: I didn't want to be walking those lonely secluded roads
Speaker 1: through the woods alone in the dark, so I heard
Speaker 1: as fast as I could. I would jog a while,
Speaker 1: and then I would sprint. I was doing anything in
Speaker 1: my power to get back as quickly as possible, but
Speaker 1: it wasn't enough. By the time I made it back
Speaker 1: to the bottom of the hill near the bridge where
Speaker 1: I had wasted all that time earlier, it was dark.
Speaker 1: I could see the road in the woods all around
Speaker 1: me because of a glowing moon that was coming over
Speaker 1: the horizon. It shined an eerie glow across the land
Speaker 1: and one way, I was glad that I could see,
Speaker 1: but in another the moonlight made it all very creepy.
Speaker 1: At the top of the hill, the road was perfectly
Speaker 1: straight and flat, with woods on the left side and
Speaker 1: a large field on the right. Another half mile and
Speaker 1: I would be home. I could see the porch lights
Speaker 1: way off in the distance, and I felt relieved. My
Speaker 1: eyes were fully adjusted to the dark at this point,
Speaker 1: and the light from the moon allowed me to see
Speaker 1: all the way across the field on my right. I
Speaker 1: was getting closer and had actually slowed down a bit.
Speaker 1: I was tired from the run. I heard something in
Speaker 1: the woods on my left. Leaves were crunching. Something was
Speaker 1: walking in there. Keeping my eyes on the woods, I
Speaker 1: kept moving. There was no way for me to see
Speaker 1: anything clearly inside the woods, even though the moonlight was shining.
Speaker 1: But in the ditch closest to the trees, I could
Speaker 1: make out a dark figure. I stopped and focused on
Speaker 1: that spot for a few seconds, and it was something,
Speaker 1: and now it was moving towards me. I thought it
Speaker 1: was a dog, but then I realized it was much
Speaker 1: too large to be a dog, and then I realized
Speaker 1: it wasn't really actually walking on four legs. It was
Speaker 1: crawling or creeping like a person wood. I couldn't take
Speaker 1: my eyes off this thing. A jolt of fear shot
Speaker 1: through me when I realized this thing was trying to
Speaker 1: sneak up on me. It was stalking me. I started
Speaker 1: walking again and I kept my eyes on it only
Speaker 1: a few yards behind me. Now. A few steps into
Speaker 1: my walk, the thing stood upright. It was big. I'm
Speaker 1: guessing it was seven feet tall, and it looked like
Speaker 1: it was covered in dark hair. But it wasn't a bear.
Speaker 1: Bears aren't that tall. I had never seen anything like this.
Speaker 1: I dropped the bag of stuff that I had been carrying,
Speaker 1: and I ran as fast as my legs could take
Speaker 1: me towards my grandparents' house. I heard a heavy breathing
Speaker 1: and a growling sound behind me. It was up on
Speaker 1: the road with me now, and I could hear its
Speaker 1: feet crunching the gravel. I never turned around. It was
Speaker 1: going to catch me at any second. I couldn't make
Speaker 1: my legs go fast enough. It was so close to
Speaker 1: me that I closed my eyes in anticipation of it
Speaker 1: grabbing me. But at that moment I heard it crash
Speaker 1: off into the woods to my left. For whatever reason,
Speaker 1: it had let me go. It was right on me,
Speaker 1: and it could have taken me down if it wanted to,
Speaker 1: but it let me go. It was a short distance
Speaker 1: away into the woods. I heard a scream. I don't
Speaker 1: think I could replicate that scream now, but I'm telling you,
Speaker 1: I'm never going to forget that scream. By the time
Speaker 1: I reached the house, my heart felt like it would
Speaker 1: explode from the run and the adrenaline pumping through my body.
Speaker 1: I flew into the house and in an incoherent mess
Speaker 1: of hyperactive gibberish, trying to explain to my grandparents what
Speaker 1: had just happened. My grandmother didn't really seem to believe me,
Speaker 1: but she knew something had scared me. She acted weird
Speaker 1: about the whole thing the rest of that night. She
Speaker 1: said it must have been a dog, but that wasn't
Speaker 1: a dog I saw on the road. The next morning,
Speaker 1: I woke up and I found my grandpa sitting outside
Speaker 1: whittling wood underneath the shade tree in the front yard,
Speaker 1: as he often liked to do. I went and sat
Speaker 1: down beside him in one of the old metal lawn chairs.
Speaker 1: He was a rational man down to earth and had
Speaker 1: grown up and hunted that area his entire life. He
Speaker 1: knew every square inch of that place. It was mapped
Speaker 1: into his mind. He knew every type of critterian creature
Speaker 1: that lived in those woods, what noises they made, where
Speaker 1: to find them, and how to catch them, etc. I
Speaker 1: had only been hunting with him for a couple of years,
Speaker 1: but I'd been going out into those woods with him
Speaker 1: since pretty young age on walks. He had passed a
Speaker 1: lot of his knowledge down to me during those adventures.
Speaker 1: I spoke to him about what had happened to me
Speaker 1: the night before, and I told him that I knew
Speaker 1: what I saw. It wasn't my overactive imagination. I wasn't
Speaker 1: making it up, and it definitely was not a dog.
Speaker 1: He knew that I wasn't just some dumb thirteen year
Speaker 1: old kid, and he knew that I knew the things
Speaker 1: he'd taught me. He stopped whittling, looked at me right
Speaker 1: in the eye, and he said, I know what you saw.
Speaker 1: I've seen it before too. There's things in the woods
Speaker 1: that people don't understand stand, and they ought not be
Speaker 1: fooled with. Ever. I'll remember those words clearly to this
Speaker 1: day because it gave me affirmation, but at the time
Speaker 1: it made me realize that whatever I had seen was
Speaker 1: real and it was beyond my understanding. My grandpa then
Speaker 1: went on to tell me that far back in the
Speaker 1: woods there are some cliffs, and at the bottom of
Speaker 1: those cliffs is a cave. He told me that the
Speaker 1: cave is where the creature lived. He had once stumbled
Speaker 1: upon it a long time ago when he was hunting.
Speaker 1: He was standing on the top of the cliff looking
Speaker 1: at it when the creature fitting the same description emerged
Speaker 1: and began screaming wildly at him and throwing rocks. He
Speaker 1: took a shot at it, he missed, and then this
Speaker 1: thing gave chase. But my grandpa was on the top,
Speaker 1: so in order to get to him, this thing had
Speaker 1: to go a long distance and then climb up, which
Speaker 1: he said it quickly began to do, so he high
Speaker 1: tailed it out of there in a hurry. The whole
Speaker 1: way back home, he felt as if he were being watched,
Speaker 1: and he kept hearing twigs snap behind him, and he
Speaker 1: was certain that it was following him, stalking him. He
Speaker 1: made it home, and as he reached his front porch,
Speaker 1: he turned and looked back at the woods from where
Speaker 1: he'd come from, and he saw it peeking out at
Speaker 1: him from behind a tree. Later that night, he said
Speaker 1: that he and my grandmother awoke in the early morning
Speaker 1: hours to large rocks being thrown at the house and
Speaker 1: howling noises from outside. It walked around on the front porch,
Speaker 1: rattling the doorknobs, banging on windows, and it sounded like
Speaker 1: it was muttering to itself in a low, garbled voice,
Speaker 1: but it didn't sound like a language, just a bunch
Speaker 1: of gibberish. After a while, the thing went back to
Speaker 1: throwing some more rocks and howling, So my grandpa grabbed
Speaker 1: a shotgun and fired it out the front door a
Speaker 1: few times into the darkness. He heard it run back
Speaker 1: into the woods. That was the last he'd see or
Speaker 1: heard of it, but over the years he heard of
Speaker 1: other farmers cows being mutilated, or someone's haunting dog going missing,
Speaker 1: or someone would have a story about some strange creature
Speaker 1: they had seen in the woods. He also said it
Speaker 1: scared my grandmother beyond words, and she absolutely has refused
Speaker 1: to ever talk about it or even acknowledged that it happened,
Speaker 1: which explains her acting weird about it when I told
Speaker 1: her about what happened to me. I know the story
Speaker 1: is pretty far fetched, and you can believe it or not.
Speaker 1: It makes no difference to me. I know what I saw,
Speaker 1: and my grandpa knew what he saw, and neither of
Speaker 1: us had ever felt the need to convince anyone else.
Speaker 1: I've never spoken of it to anyone other than a
Speaker 1: few close to me and my grandfather, and he passed
Speaker 1: away over ten years ago, and now I'm sharing it
Speaker 1: with you. These things are just as real as you
Speaker 1: and I, and just like people, they come in all
Speaker 1: manner of personality and temperament. These aren't just stories. These
Speaker 1: are people's memories of a creature that lives in our woods.
Speaker 1: I'm an oil truck driver in the state of Connecticut.
Speaker 1: It's not a popular state for bigfoot sightings, at least
Speaker 1: that's what I thought. This experience took place at a
Speaker 1: campground along Route eighty, but I prefer not to say
Speaker 1: the exact location. I drive a Trixole oil truck, which
Speaker 1: is quite large, but it's not a tractor trailer. In
Speaker 1: the fall, our workload increases, and on this day I
Speaker 1: had twelve tickets for delivery at the same location. It
Speaker 1: was a summer camp that was having a Halloween weekend
Speaker 1: event for kids. I had to fuel the outside above
Speaker 1: ground oil tanks that heated the cabins and the water heaters.
Speaker 1: I arrived at six am on Thursday, before the weekend celebrations,
Speaker 1: and I began fueling my first cabin. Without moving the truck,
Speaker 1: I could drag the hose to three other cabins within reach.
Speaker 1: In case you aren't familiar with old delivery, the oil
Speaker 1: goes in and a vent alarm allows the pushed air
Speaker 1: out with a whistling sound. Some of these vent alarms
Speaker 1: were making piercing sounds, and some were clogged with the
Speaker 1: bugs or other matter. The driver before me may have
Speaker 1: overloaded the tanks and there's oil on top of the
Speaker 1: vent alarm, and sometimes it makes it gurgle. It's hard
Speaker 1: to explain, but sometimes it makes the whistle sound sick.
Speaker 1: I parked the truck and dragged the hose to fuel
Speaker 1: the farthest of the three cabins first. I always dragged
Speaker 1: to the farthest first to make the next ones easier.
Speaker 1: I feel the first tank and there was nothing unusual.
Speaker 1: And then as I began feeling the next cabin's tank.
Speaker 1: I noticed movement in the distance. There wasn't anything in
Speaker 1: the background except woods in a lake, and after the
Speaker 1: lake there was nothing but more woods. It was two
Speaker 1: days before the weekend, and I thought it odd that
Speaker 1: someone would be there so early. The second Kevin I
Speaker 1: delivered the oil too, made a funny whistling sound. While
Speaker 1: venting that gurgling sound again, I saw the movement of
Speaker 1: these three people. I'm alone in the middle of nowhere
Speaker 1: this early, and I'm thinking, who in the world is
Speaker 1: fishing well? I finished, and I moved to the third
Speaker 1: oil tank within reach before I went on to fill
Speaker 1: the next nine tanks on the property. And then I
Speaker 1: hooked the hose up and started my job again. But
Speaker 1: I'm still looking toward the lake. The whistle on this
Speaker 1: one was blaring, and as I was waiting for the
Speaker 1: tank to fill, a figure moved. It was massive. It
Speaker 1: was not a person. Holy cow, I thought now. I
Speaker 1: stopped the delivery to quiet the vent alarm whistle. I
Speaker 1: didn't move as I watched, and this thing was still
Speaker 1: walking toward me. I'm telling you, it was enormous and
Speaker 1: I was still and I was panicking. My old truck
Speaker 1: is nine feet ten inches tall, and this thing was
Speaker 1: just as tall. It was about forty yards from me
Speaker 1: in the truck, but it was close enough for me.
Speaker 1: And then the two others that were smaller moved, and
Speaker 1: they were to the right of me. Their movement was slow,
Speaker 1: and I think they were curious, but I wasn't curious.
Speaker 1: I was terrified. The good part of this is they
Speaker 1: were not aggressive. The vent alarms must have intrigued them.
Speaker 1: But I moved slowly and then I reeled up the
Speaker 1: hose and I got the heck out of there. At noon,
Speaker 1: I went back with a helper to fuel the rest
Speaker 1: of the cabins. I'm not a shame to admit that
Speaker 1: I was scared. I have never seen anything on two
Speaker 1: feet that huge. I can't describe their faces, but I
Speaker 1: know three creatures on two legs. Isn't a coincidence. They
Speaker 1: weren't bears, because bears are not that agile or that large.
Speaker 1: Fuel the campground since then, but I don't go at
Speaker 1: six am. I let others open the campground before I
Speaker 1: get there. You would be interested in what happened to
Speaker 1: me a year ago and twice more recently near the
Speaker 1: Humboldt Mendocino County headwaters of the Matole River. After the
Speaker 1: encounter with the inexplicable, I have become absolutely convinced that
Speaker 1: some unknown animal exists here, and I began on the
Speaker 1: Internet a search of similar accounts. While immersed, suddenly in
Speaker 1: this mystery, it became clear to me that these experience
Speaker 1: must be documented and conveyed to others. Last July in
Speaker 1: twenty eighteen, I was staying in an isolated region which
Speaker 1: had limited access behind three locked gates, and it was
Speaker 1: twenty miles north of Whitethorne, California, on a primitive four
Speaker 1: by four road. This place is at the end of
Speaker 1: the road a lost world of primeval forest on the
Speaker 1: northern border of a vast green belt spreading from Shelter
Speaker 1: Cove on the Lost Coast east to Highway one oh
Speaker 1: one and south to Fort Bragg, as can be seen
Speaker 1: on Google Earth. At three am, I was awake and
Speaker 1: there was a hot, dark, and completely silent July night.
Speaker 1: Something above my tent location began knocking on wood. It
Speaker 1: would be best described as loud wax on a tree
Speaker 1: trunk by a big club or branch. It started with
Speaker 1: one knock which got my attention with a brief hesitation,
Speaker 1: and then several more knocks, but randomly timed, some in
Speaker 1: succession and others after hesitation. The knocking was so loud
Speaker 1: that it echoed down the canyon, and the event only
Speaker 1: lasted a minute. My first thoughts were that there was
Speaker 1: no one on the mountain in who could be out
Speaker 1: here in the middle of a primitive and protected area.
Speaker 1: The knocks were from something large, and no North American
Speaker 1: animal could have made them. Listening, while my mind tried
Speaker 1: to wrap around how the noise was made, I began
Speaker 1: to wonder about bigfoot legends. The night fell silent again,
Speaker 1: and afterward I told a few locals, and I learned
Speaker 1: that there had been many bigfoot sightings near Piercy and
Speaker 1: north to Willow Creek. And then two weeks ago, when
Speaker 1: waiting at the first lock gate to the same conservation area,
Speaker 1: I heard two distinct vocalizations which cannot be explained. As
Speaker 1: I waited in the dusk for forty five minutes waiting
Speaker 1: to meet a party at the gate who were running late,
Speaker 1: I heard a loud wail that I've never heard before
Speaker 1: in nature, the call of this thing I located at
Speaker 1: my two o'clock facing east and up the heavily wooded
Speaker 1: area above me two three three hundred meters. I instantly
Speaker 1: knew where I had heard such an unfamiliar call. It
Speaker 1: was three years ago when watching a Bigfoot reality show
Speaker 1: where these Sasquatch hunters were making the strange and unique call.
Speaker 1: At that time, I remember thinking how ridiculous it seemed
Speaker 1: for people to be on television trekking at night and
Speaker 1: making strange calls in the woods. There was a delay
Speaker 1: from the first call, and then a few more, and
Speaker 1: then silence for a minute, leaving me to wonder if
Speaker 1: this whole experience was surreal, pondering what I know about
Speaker 1: the wilderness, either that was an unknown animal or some
Speaker 1: kind of implausible prank. It was loud and echoing down
Speaker 1: the mountain, as though some huge creature could belt with
Speaker 1: its lungs like pavariety, only much louder. The chance of
Speaker 1: it being a prankster waiting in silence with me for
Speaker 1: forty five minutes in that remote location just to hang
Speaker 1: out in these impenetral woods to prank me was highly unlikely.
Speaker 1: Having only a moment to ponder this oddity, there began
Speaker 1: another call, out at three to four hundred meters to
Speaker 1: the north of the first and at my eight o'clock
Speaker 1: it was also just as loud, but it came only
Speaker 1: three calls in succession. Well. This blew my mind because
Speaker 1: the first call might be attributed to an elk on steroids,
Speaker 1: but the response from what was clearly not an owl
Speaker 1: brought chills down my spine. I moved closer to my
Speaker 1: vehicle and I listened for another thirty minutes in the darkness.
Speaker 1: I will never forget the second vocalization. It was so unique,
Speaker 1: and this was obvious communication between two individuals, as well
Speaker 1: as possibly a rudimentary language. I had a fourth experience,
Speaker 1: which I must mention here in context, but it happened
Speaker 1: the night before the duel of vocalizations. On Friday evening,
Speaker 1: November one, twenty nineteen. I had moved into a cabin
Speaker 1: that my brother and I rented, located along an extremely
Speaker 1: rugged canyon area of the Macholi River. It was dusk
Speaker 1: and it was dark already in the forest, and I
Speaker 1: was outside looking at the stars, taking in the newness
Speaker 1: of the rugged surroundings above. Again, three hundred meters up
Speaker 1: into the east of the river, there was a scream
Speaker 1: so loud and so foreboding that I could only listen
Speaker 1: in amazement. It was the loudest scream I've ever heard,
Speaker 1: So loud I thought it was produced by some kind
Speaker 1: of banshee from a horror film. The screaming continued full
Speaker 1: throttle for five minutes. I know mountain lions can scream,
Speaker 1: but nothing like this. It sounded much louder, more guttural,
Speaker 1: as if if someone had set up loud speakers and
Speaker 1: played the bloodiest screen that Hollywood could produce at the time.
Speaker 1: The night after Halloween, I wondered if someone was up
Speaker 1: on the mountain pranking me as a newcomer to the neighborhood.
Speaker 1: Now I listened for a bit, and then I went
Speaker 1: inside and told my brother about it because it was
Speaker 1: so unnerving. Bigfoot never entered my mind. But then at
Speaker 1: dusk the very next evening, I witnessed these two calls
Speaker 1: waiting at the gate. I've since been over and over
Speaker 1: in my mind. Why have I been so lucky as
Speaker 1: to hear or experience such a mystery, much less three
Speaker 1: distinct vocalizations which cannot be explained in a twenty four
Speaker 1: hour period. I began pouring over the USGS maps in
Speaker 1: satellite imagery to ascertain what the link might be at
Speaker 1: fifteen miles distance. Were there people or neighbors or access
Speaker 1: for individuals in the ear areas I experience? Could this
Speaker 1: explain this? I have since hiked all over these areas
Speaker 1: searching for activity, but found only empty dense woods. Could
Speaker 1: one creature in such obvious stress on one night have
Speaker 1: triggered the coincidental travel of at least two more unknown
Speaker 1: creatures the very next night. I've talked to the locals
Speaker 1: about hearing strange noises, but no one claims anything or
Speaker 1: they don't want to be ridiculed. I would like to
Speaker 1: know if there have been recent experiences by others in
Speaker 1: my area. I'm a sixty year old man with a
Speaker 1: high degree of credibility, extensive wilderness experience in forests and jungles.
Speaker 1: I have trecked and lived in remote areas of Africa, Australia,
Speaker 1: Central and South America, many places of potential danger, and
Speaker 1: never had an inkling of fear. I was born and
Speaker 1: raised near Yellowstone Park, and I never had a bad
Speaker 1: experience with a grizzly, a mountain lion, or wolves traveling
Speaker 1: all these years with a firm understanding of ecosystems, I
Speaker 1: never could have believed in such mysteries that anything new
Speaker 1: would ever be discovered. What happened to me has completely
Speaker 1: changed me on many levels. There is a mystery in
Speaker 1: these woods, and I have a few ideas on how
Speaker 1: to find answers to it. If anyone else has had
Speaker 1: similar experiences who live near me, I'm eager to share
Speaker 1: and explore this phenomenon further. The Bigfoot that wasn't. As
Speaker 1: long as I can remember, I've been a hunting fanatic.
Speaker 1: I've spent many days in the field with my buddies
Speaker 1: in pursuit of the wild and wooly beasts, mostly deer
Speaker 1: and elk, can occasionally bear. In the rocky mountains of Utah, Wyoming, Idaho,
Speaker 1: and Montana, my friends and I would spend many fall
Speaker 1: nights and we would sit around a crackling fire in
Speaker 1: the high valleys of the mountains, weaving tales of hunts
Speaker 1: gone by. Each story told would seem to top the
Speaker 1: one previously recited. Some were new adventures, while others were
Speaker 1: old ones revisited every year, but with new, slightly enhanced details.
Speaker 1: As the night passed, and the stories progressed, they inevitably
Speaker 1: morphed into tales of mysterious and unknown, like ghosts, goblins,
Speaker 1: and bigfoot. None of us had actually seen a ghost,
Speaker 1: a goblin, or a bigfoot. In fact, none of us
Speaker 1: had ever even heard of anyone encountering any of them,
Speaker 1: especially a bigfoot, anywhere near the areas where we hunted.
Speaker 1: But for some unknown reason, each of us had experienced
Speaker 1: strange happenings that we were sure could be directly attributed
Speaker 1: to Bigfoot. I don't know how we knew they were
Speaker 1: connected to Bigfoot. Nevertheless, we were darned sure, convincingly so
Speaker 1: when telling our tales of intrigue that Bigfoot was the culprit.
Speaker 1: I guess one could say that we were embellishing the
Speaker 1: truth slightly, maybe even a little more than slightly. But
Speaker 1: it was all in fun, and everyone had a great
Speaker 1: time trying to outdo everyone else. Due to the convincing
Speaker 1: manner by which some could relate their stories, the lines
Speaker 1: between truth and fiction often blurred in the minds of
Speaker 1: the recipients, making it difficult to decipher between the two.
Speaker 1: This resulted in doubt and sometimes confusion in each of
Speaker 1: our minds about what really lurked in the shadows of
Speaker 1: the forests. We hunted one particular warm autumn day, when
Speaker 1: the air was clean, fresh and filled with the fragrance
Speaker 1: of sage, and the sky was clear blue, and the
Speaker 1: golden aspen leaves shimmered as a slight breeze blue and
Speaker 1: rattled them around. I leaned against the but thin, chalky
Speaker 1: white aspen tree trunk, intently scanning the grove for movement,
Speaker 1: hoping to spot a sly old moss back buck. As
Speaker 1: my hunting buddies pushed from the opposite direction. Just when
Speaker 1: boredom and daydreams started to creep into my mind, Larry,
Speaker 1: my hunting buddy, came thundering down the hill from right
Speaker 1: to left. His pants were partially down, one hand holding
Speaker 1: them up and the other hanging onto a roll of
Speaker 1: toilet paper that unraveled as he passed, trailing behind an
Speaker 1: apparent white flag of surrender. Si squatch, He screamed. Larry
Speaker 1: was the kind of young buck that fancied himself a tall,
Speaker 1: tough cigar smoking beer, drinking four by four driving lumberjack
Speaker 1: of a man that could fell a tree with one
Speaker 1: swing of his axe. I started to laugh at the
Speaker 1: sight of such a man, nearly streaking past as he
Speaker 1: half mooned a mother nature, while I wondered what had
Speaker 1: rattled him. At that exact moment, however, a heart stopping
Speaker 1: roar erupted from just over the ridge top twenty yards
Speaker 1: to my right and slightly behind me. I jolted to attention,
Speaker 1: darn near snapping my neck while trying to orient my
Speaker 1: head to see what could have made the startling noise,
Speaker 1: all the while trying not to move my body and
Speaker 1: reveal my stealthy position. In hindsight, I suppose Larry, having
Speaker 1: just blown by me with all the stealth of a
Speaker 1: fire truck on its way to a fore alarm fire,
Speaker 1: probably negated that need. That roar was nothing like anything
Speaker 1: I'd heard in the forest before, and it scared the
Speaker 1: crap out of me. The top of a young aspen
Speaker 1: tree about seven feet tall, rooted just on the other
Speaker 1: side of the ridge top, shook like it had been
Speaker 1: hit by a truck. A deep moan followed in a
Speaker 1: second roar or agonizing growl erupted. Smokes. What the heck
Speaker 1: is that? I thought, as I turned to face the
Speaker 1: unidentified creature. Another sapling a six or seven foot or
Speaker 1: just over the ridge for me, rocked and fell like
Speaker 1: it had been run over by a bulldozer. Whatever the
Speaker 1: heck this thing was, it was big and powerful, and
Speaker 1: from the sound of it, it was upset. My mind raced,
Speaker 1: trying to categorize the sound into something familiar, but nothing fit.
Speaker 1: Needless to say, by this time, I was more than
Speaker 1: a little concerned for my safety, as my only defense
Speaker 1: was a fifty pound recurved bow, not ideal for toe
Speaker 1: to toe in your face confrontation with what was Larry
Speaker 1: screaming a sisquatch? But there weren't any sasquatch in this
Speaker 1: area of the country, I reasoned, was sasquatch even real?
Speaker 1: By this time, the unidentified creature had just crested the
Speaker 1: top of the ridge twenty yards from me, but I
Speaker 1: still couldn't I see it through the younger tree growth.
Speaker 1: Do I run or stand my ground? I asked myself.
Speaker 1: My curiosity wrestled with my common sense, and I couldn't
Speaker 1: quite decide until I knew what was confronting me. I
Speaker 1: crouched and stretched, peering and peeking through the trees, just
Speaker 1: catching glimpses, trying to get a better look at what
Speaker 1: was coming at me A moan and a growl and
Speaker 1: a roar in sequence. One part of me screamed run,
Speaker 1: The other part said, find out what this is and
Speaker 1: then run. Another tree bent over and then snapped back
Speaker 1: into place. It was like in all the stories you
Speaker 1: hear around the campfire at night. It looked huge. It
Speaker 1: was black, It was covered in fur, and on all fours.
Speaker 1: There was still not enough visible yet to make any
Speaker 1: kind of identification. By this time, I had no time
Speaker 1: to run this thing, this big, black, hairy thing was
Speaker 1: almost on top of me. I had daley dollied too long,
Speaker 1: and all I could do was thump it with an arrow.
Speaker 1: As soon as I could get confirmation of identification and
Speaker 1: a clear shot corridor, I drew my bow and I
Speaker 1: took a deep breath, and I let it out halfway.
Speaker 1: Tunnel vision was in full effect, and I could only
Speaker 1: see what I was looking directly at in front of me.
Speaker 1: A circus elephant could have walked right up beside me
Speaker 1: and even sat on me. I wouldn't have noticed it
Speaker 1: until I was as flat as a pancake. Sweat was
Speaker 1: rolling down my brow and stinging my eyes. My arms
Speaker 1: were shaking with fatigue. With my bow at full draw,
Speaker 1: the seconds turned into hours. I needed to release my draw,
Speaker 1: rest my arm for a moment and wipe the sweat
Speaker 1: from my eyes, and quickly I did so, and just
Speaker 1: as I again drew my bow, the creature emerged through
Speaker 1: the thick underbrush into full view. I expected to see
Speaker 1: a siequatch, and for just a second, I did, but
Speaker 1: my mind was playing tricks on me. It was not
Speaker 1: a sasquatch or a bear. It was a huge, one
Speaker 1: thousand pound bull, as in bovine bull. I released the
Speaker 1: tension on my bow slowly, and I took a deep breath.
Speaker 1: The bull walked painfully past me, moaning and groaning and
Speaker 1: growling as he took each step. His wide horns would
Speaker 1: push saplings down as he passed by, and they would
Speaker 1: either break off or snap back into place. I looked
Speaker 1: for the source of his pain, and I quickly discovered
Speaker 1: its calls. The bull's testicles were inflamed and swollen to
Speaker 1: the size of a small watermelon. Every time he took
Speaker 1: a step forward, his rear leg would contact the inflamed
Speaker 1: portion of his mail anatomy and may hime grown and
Speaker 1: roar with pain. The roar he made did not in
Speaker 1: any way sound like a bovine, at least none that
Speaker 1: I had ever heard. Of course, I was no expert
Speaker 1: on the sounds such an animal made when in extreme pain.
Speaker 1: He was such a massive bull that he had a
Speaker 1: very deep, raspy, grown and roar that sounded like nothing
Speaker 1: else I had ever heard. His hair was long, shaggy,
Speaker 1: and tangled with sticks and tree leaves and mud. He
Speaker 1: looked old and fatigued and almost lost. He could have
Speaker 1: been blind. I was relieved it wasn't a sasquatch and
Speaker 1: that I wasn't going to be torn limb from limb.
Speaker 1: I began to laugh and almost cry at the same time.
Speaker 1: When I emerged from the tree line, I met a
Speaker 1: rancher in an old, run down GMC pickup truck making
Speaker 1: his way up the dusty dirt road. He was looking
Speaker 1: for his bull. He had not seen it for a
Speaker 1: while and was concerned that it had been taken by
Speaker 1: predators or had died of old age. I told him
Speaker 1: if he just waited a few minutes right where we were,
Speaker 1: and if it didn't deviate from its downhill course, they
Speaker 1: would be reunited. Shortly. The rancher was relieved to hear
Speaker 1: his bull was still alive and close. He used the
Speaker 1: CBE radio to call his sons in another truck to
Speaker 1: come and get the distressed animal. That night, back at camp,
Speaker 1: Larry took a brutal onslaught of jeers and laughters. As
Speaker 1: I recited the encounter, This ended up being one of
Speaker 1: those stories told around the campfire every year. Larry didn't
Speaker 1: laugh about it the first few years, but eventually he
Speaker 1: found the humor in it and laughed right along with
Speaker 1: the rest of us about the sasquatch that wasn't