Speaker 1: On Christmas Eve in nineteen seventy four, I was nine
years old. I was the smallest of all my brothers
and cousins. My dad lived on a creeksburg just off
of West Cash Creek in Cotton County, Oklahoma. His home
was on a dead end road a quarter mile from
our grandparents' house. We were at our grandparents celebrating with them,
but had gotten bored, so our dad let us walk home.
We walked a short distance to our house, but when
we got there, we found it was locked. My dad
never locked the house, but I guess because it was
Christmas he had locked it. We didn't want to walk
back to our grandparents, so we climbed into our red
nineteen fifty Model F one. We call that thing the
red Wing. We were sitting there talking for a while
when we went quiet and we were just looking around.
We could see pretty well because of the full moon
at night, and we had heard a bunch of leaves
for us ling like someone was taking steps through the woods.
We figured it was an armadillo, so we didn't think
anything about it. And then I noticed something moving in
the tree line. What is that? I asked my brothers.
We all looked, and though it was a clear night
with a full moon, we couldn't make it out clearly.
The only thing that we could come up with was
that it was someone in a gilly suit sneaking through
the trees, trying to take our Christmas away from us.
But we looked at each other and we nodded. We
had to defend the house. We didn't have any time
to come up with a plan, because this big guy
walked up to the fence my dad had put him
around the house, and he stepped right over it. We
knew right then it wasn't a man in a gilly suit.
That fence was four and a half feet tall, and
this thing stepped over it. It was nothing. We jumped
from the truck and ran as fast as we could
back to our grandparents' house, and we fell through the door,
and all of us started telling our story. Well none
of them believed us. After all the laughings stopped, my
dad and grandparents called it at night, and life continued
on as usual, and Christmas was not stolen. It was
a month later and my dad was in town at
the local coffee shop, and he was telling this story
to a few of his former friends. One of our
neighbors had told my dad that he had seen something
strange about a week before Christmas at the edge of
his property. My dad may have claimed he didn't believe us,
but we were never allowed to go to the creek
without a side arm after that, and the next Christmas
we all got brand new thirty thirty rifles. To this day,
all of my brothers but one denied this ever happened.
Always tell them to quit lying, and I remind them
that they were running just as fast as I was.
I never saw that thing again, and that's fine by me.
We live right next to the Daniel Bou National Forest.
My family enjoyed walking the forest trails. Being deep in
the national forest is usually very peaceful, but things like
bears and pigs can make it uncomfortable. The stories from
the locals were taken with a grain of salt because
they loved to put one over on outsiders. And then
the day comes when the forest around you becomes completely silent,
no birds or bugs, or wind or even leaves making
any noise. That depth of silence can become oppressive. In
twenty twelve, my son was in the forest when everything
went eerily silent. He was frozen in place, too afraid
to move because he knew he was being watched. He
finally ran to the visitor center and he mentioned the
experience to a state and federal employee. He has always
been interested in cryptids, and he asked one of the
guys if he thought it could have been bigfoot. To
his surprise, they both nodded yes. One of the officials
turned and walked away, while the other stood quietly for
a moment, and when he replied, he spoke in soft tones.
The government has no comment on such matters, he said,
but there are things in that forest that we can explain.
I've seen them. Everyone in our line of work has
seen them. But saying anything official could cost us our job. Well.
That ended the conversation, and it led to a much
more interesting revelation. On Thanksgiving that year, we were invited
to a friend's home since we could not travel to
be with our family. My friend lived several miles away
on the south side of a beautiful valley which had
a mixture of small farms and homes. The view from
the porch was wonderful, especially at sunset, and after we
had eaten too much, the conversation wound its way to
what my son had asked the folks at the National
Forest after his standard you may think I'm crazy, but
I believe, and this is what happened. Opening my son
told his story, and when he finished, my friend smiled
and he said, let me tell you what happened to me.
One night. He said that he and his wife were
sitting on the front porch with a smoke and a
cup of coffee. It wasn't quite full dark, but it
was getting close. It was a beautiful night with just
a hint of wind, and a chill was starting to
set in. Across the valley. Up on the ridge toward
the west, a pack of coat he started howling. They
were making all sorts of racket. A few minutes later,
another pack started up directly across the valley, and after
that it seemed like every dog in the valley started
up too, answering or joining in, they really couldn't tell.
He and his wife looked at each other as the
mood of the peaceful valley turned uneasy, and then a
third coyote pack joined in, only it sounded like they
were in panic. The mood was becoming uncomfortable, and they
knew it was time to go inside, and as they
stood up to go in, an unearthly scream came from
the head of the valley. It was long and loud
and deep. Every single coyote and dog in the area
shut up immediately. One second they were barking and howling
like crazy, and then it went dead silent. His wife
headed for the door to get inside, but he stepped
off the porch long enough to grab his gun from
his truck. Inside, he and his wife still felt uneasy.
Even the cat was acting. This cat was usually completely
independent and didn't need anybody, but that night she found
his wife's lap and stayed in it. After a few
minutes of complete silence, the normal night sound started up again,
and the tension began to ease. But for the rest
of the night, not a single dog or coyote made
another sound. On a summer night back in nineteen seventy six,
my brother Mike, Harold, and I decided to take a
long hike on Old William Penn Highway. Back then, it
was a forest road with woods on both sides. We
walked from Harold's apartment down a long hill all the
way to Garden City, Monroeville Garden City was known in
those days to be full of girls who went to
the Gateway High School, and we wanted to meet up
with some of them. On the way there, at the
bottom of the long hill, we ran into an awful smell.
We thought it might be a dead animal. It was
like scat mixed with rotten meat, and the smell made
all of us uneasy, and I suggested that we run.
We soon reached Garden City, about three miles further. We
met up with the girls and forgot about all that.
It was around near midnight and their mothers made them
come home, so my brothers and I left and we
headed back down Old William Penn. About a half mile
into the trip, we got that same uneasy feeling again,
only this time it felt like we were being watched.
We walked down this pitch black road with the forest
on the slope above us. Twenty yards up the hill,
we noticed the trees and the thick bushes had started
to sway and part like something huge was walking through
them as easily as we walked through air. It paralleled
us for a mile or so before it took a
sharp turn toward us. That's when we panicked. We ran
five hundred yards before we slowed down. I was on
the high school track team, so I took off. Mike
kept up with me, but Harold he was slow. We
waited for him to catch up, and when he did,
whatever was chasing us had caught up too, and it
stayed with us for another half mile, and then it
shot ahead of us, moving through the thick brush like
it was nothing at all. At that point, we realized
we needed a plan. I was going to watch the
left side of the road and ahead of us, and
Mike was going to watch the right side, and Harold
would watch the back. We proceeded like this for another mile.
We were scared to death, and that's when Mike let
out a blood curdling scream. I immediately started running again.
This time I was alone. I ran another five hundred
yards before I realized there was no one with me
and I had to go back and get my brothers.
I ran and I was yelling and pleading with them
to come with me, but there was no response. And
when I got back to my brothers, I saw they
were both in shock. I had to corral them up
the hill, dragging and pushing the whole time, expecting to
be killed at any moment. I finally got them to
the car, but we were in such bad shape that
we couldn't drive more than twenty miles an hour. Mike
was crying, tears streamed down his face, and he said,
I saw it. It was right beside the road. It
was waiting for us, crouching down on its haunches and
hiding even on its knees. It was taller than me.
I didn't know how to process this. Mike was six
foot four inches tall. He said. It was covered in
hair from its head to its toes, and it was
only five feet away. It didn't seem to want to
hurt us. It was just curious or maybe playing around
with us. We've never gone hiking in those woods again
at night. I never even go fishing without a fire
or more at least a pistol. I never want to
be that frightened or helpless ever again. I live in Bozeman, Montana,
and I have had two encounters with something strange. The
first one was when I lived in Pony, Montana. It's
a tiny town tucked into the mountains. In twenty twelve,
my friend and I went to a hot spring that
our good friend was a caretaker of the owners were
a rich couple that were never there, especially in the
harsh winters. Well, being Montana girls, we were never afraid
to grab some beard and throw the car in four
wheel drive and sneak up to these hot springs, even
in wiste deep snow. The pools were tucked into a
ravine that was surrounded by steep mountains and large rocks.
It really was a beautiful and peaceful place. There was
a gate with a key that we had access to
thanks to our friend. We probably abused our privileges, but
either way, we were having fun. Young single girls who
would rather ask for forgiveness rather than ask for permission.
We would often sit in the sauna above the pools.
Had to start a fire in the stove and pour
water over the rocks that sat on the top of it,
and this created the heat. This was our little heaven
and this must have been the hundred time we had
been up there. Around eleven PM, we left the sauna
and we jumped in the pool and we swam to
the far end and talked and drank our beer. And
it wasn't long until both of us got an eerie
feeling that we were being watched. We had felt that
feeling before, but nothing like this. There was a mountain
lion known to be in the area on previous visits
to the property, we always assumed that that was what
it was. This time, though, it was different. It was
almost gut wrenching. We heard a rock come crashing down
from the mountain, hitting several times and then landing in
the dirt outside of the pool, and then it rolled
toward us. My friend asked me if I thought it
was Bill, the caretaker, but I asked her how he
could have gotten up there on the incline. Knowing Bill,
he would have made his presence known to us. He
would have come to say hi and bum some beer
and cigarettes too. We sat there in silence, and the
hair on our neck started to stand up. There in
that hot pool. I felt chills all over my body.
It was almost painful. Every fiber of my being was
telling me to go go as fast as we could.
And when I turned to my friend, I saw her
face was white as a sheet. Something doesn't want us
here tonight. I think we should leave, I whispered. We
swam to the other end of the pool and got
our clothes and beer, and then half walked and half
around the eight hundred feet down the main road to
our car. Even inside the car, we felt this empty,
evil presence all around us. We drove a mile to
the locked gate, and when my friend got out to
open it, she was so scared she dropped the key
in the snow. I got out of the car to
help her, and I saw a pair of large tracks
to the right of the gate. I didn't follow them
to see how far they went up, but there were
no other tire tracks in the snow other than from
our friend's vehicle, and they were far enough from our
footprints to know that we hadn't made them. They were
far too big to be from our boots. I locked
the gate and I told my friend to get the
hell out of there. We stayed up all night talking
about it. It was unexplainable. The feeling was something neither
of us had ever felt before. Ten years later and
I was married and I had three beautiful children. My
husband and our farmers and bozemen a long time, and
date nights are few and far between. One night during
the winter we were able to have a kid free night.
We decided to go out for dinner and then drive
up to the lake for a little adventure. We knew
the roads would be sketchy with the snow and the
windy road up to the lake that is surrounded by
a forest. His truck barely made it in that deep snow,
but we parked by the lake and we sat on
the tailgate facing the mountains. We were the only car
up there, and no one came in behind us. That
was clear because there were no other tracks in the
snow besides the one we left. It was snowing and
pretty warm that night, so we bundled up and grabbed
our drinks and we talked on the tailgate. Right as
I was about to tell my husband that I was
getting cold, that feeling of dread and terror came over
me again. I was quickly reminded of mine my friend's
creepy experience that night when we were younger. What is it?
Asked my husband. Right there, the rock flew out of
the darkness and it hit the ground three feet in
front of us, and it rolled to the rear tire.
The look on my husband's face told me that he
had the same gut wrenching feeling as I did. We
got back in the pickup truck, and my husband asked
what the hell was that. He said that right before
the rock had hit the ground, he got an icky,
sick feeling. I told him that I did too, and
he turned the truck around and shined the lights toward
the trees where the rock came from. There was not
a soul, not a car, or anything to be seen
on the way down the mountain. I told my husband
about my friend and our experience in the Hot Springs
all those years ago. Well, we decided to tell my father,
and that's when he told us about your podcast. Even
though I did not see anything, I can relate to
many others in their stories. Deep down, I have always
thought it was something like Bigfoot from fear of being
deemed a crackpot. Though I never let myself truly believe,
and certainly never told anyone, I think it's safe to
say that I believe now