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