Speaker 1: Hi.
Speaker 2: I'm doctor Maria Meyer, anthropologists, primatologist, wildlife correspondent and part
Speaker 2: of the team on Expedition Bigfoot. I've spent my entire
Speaker 2: life exploring the planet's wildest, most remote places in search
Speaker 2: of the extraordinary, and now I'm inviting you to join me.
Speaker 2: Introducing the Explorer Society, a global community of curious minds,
Speaker 2: truth seekers, and adventures where we dive into the unknown,
Speaker 2: from elusive creatures like Bigfoot, to the frontiers of science,
Speaker 2: nature and unexplained phenomena. Live q and as and roundtable discussions,
Speaker 2: especial guest interviews including the Expedition Bigfoot team, Dave Schrader,
Speaker 2: Cliff Berrickman plus Josh Gates, Jack Osborne and many more.
Speaker 2: On demand streaming content, invites to exclusive events and conferences
Speaker 2: around the world, Explore Society swag, and even the chance
Speaker 2: to join us on a real life expedition. Come explore
Speaker 2: with me. Let's discover what's out there. Joint Explorer Society
Speaker 2: at Maria Mayor dot com and one what are your reporting?
Speaker 3: I got a screen going on here. Something just kid
Speaker 3: my dog, something killed your dog? My dog? We're flying
Speaker 3: through the or over the tree. I don't know how
Speaker 3: it did it? Okay, damn it. I'm really confused. All
Speaker 3: I saw was my dog coming over the fence and
Speaker 3: they was dead. And once you hit the grill, I
Speaker 3: didn't see any cars. All I saw was my dog
Speaker 3: coming over the fence. One. What are you reporting? We
Speaker 3: got some wond or something crawling around out here? Did
Speaker 3: you see what it was?
Speaker 1: Was?
Speaker 3: It was stand enough. I'm out here looking through the
Speaker 3: window now and I don't see anything. I don't want
Speaker 3: to go fight. Hello, hit the boddy out here, pquin
Speaker 3: on out there. I've thought of a mention about technine.
Speaker 3: I don't know. Easy annount there. Yeah, I'm right.
Speaker 4: Hey.
Speaker 5: There are places in this country where civilization ends and
Speaker 5: something else begins. Deep forests where cell phones don't work,
Speaker 5: where the nearest road might as well be on another planet,
Speaker 5: where the only sounds are wind through ancient trees and
Speaker 5: your own heartbeat echoing in your ears. Most people who
Speaker 5: venture into these places come back with stories of scenic vistas,
Speaker 5: wildlife sightings, and the kind of peace that only true
Speaker 5: wilderness can provide, But some come back changed. What you're
Speaker 5: about to hear are six accounts from people who encountered
Speaker 5: something in America's most remote forests, something that science says
Speaker 5: doesn't exist. These aren't campfire tales or Internet legends, their
Speaker 5: first hand testimonies from experience outdoorsmen and women, hunters, park rangers,
Speaker 5: wilderness guides, search and rescue volunteers, people whose livelihoods depend
Speaker 5: on understanding the natural world and the creatures that inhabit it.
Speaker 5: Each story comes from a different decade, a different region,
Speaker 5: a different set of circumstances, but they share common threads
Speaker 5: that run deeper than coincidence. Massive footprints in places where
Speaker 5: no human should be, glimpses of something that walks upright
Speaker 5: but isn't quite human, The unsettling feeling of being watched
Speaker 5: by eyes that reflect in intelligence both ancient and alien.
Speaker 5: These witnesses didn't ask to become part of this mystery.
Speaker 5: They were simply in the wrong place at the right time,
Speaker 5: or perhaps the right place at the wrong time, depending
Speaker 5: on your perspective. Most have never spoken publicly about their experiences.
Speaker 5: Some have never told anyone at all until now. The
Speaker 5: forests they describe still exist, largely unchanged our increasingly connected world,
Speaker 5: millions of acres of wilderness where something large and intelligent
Speaker 5: could live its entire existence without ever appearing in a
Speaker 5: scientific journal or government database. Places where the old rules
Speaker 5: still apply, where humans are visitors at best and trespassers
Speaker 5: at worst. Listen carefully to what these people have to say.
Speaker 5: They have nothing to gain from sharing their stories and
Speaker 5: everything to lose, but they've chosen to speak because they
Speaker 5: believe you deserve to know that there are still mysteries
Speaker 5: in this world, still boundaries between the known and unknown
Speaker 5: that we cross at our own peril. The truth, as
Speaker 5: they say, is out there. Sometimes it's closer than we think.
Speaker 5: The Roosevelt elk hunting season had been disappointing that year.
Speaker 5: Three days into what was supposed to be a week
Speaker 5: long trip, and I hadn't seen so much as fresh sign.
Speaker 5: The Olympic Peninsula's dense rainforest can swallow a man whole
Speaker 5: if he's not careful, and after twenty three years of
Speaker 5: hunting these woods, I thought I knew every game, trail
Speaker 5: and creek crossing from the whole River to Lake Crescent.
Speaker 5: That fourth morning started like any other. I'd set up
Speaker 5: camp near a small clearing about eight miles from the
Speaker 5: nearest logging road, far enough back that most weekend warriors
Speaker 5: wouldn't bother making the track. The mist hung thick between
Speaker 5: the massive Douglas firs and western hemlocks, creating a green
Speaker 5: cathedral that seemed to muffle every sound except the distant
Speaker 5: drip of condensation from branches high above. I was working
Speaker 5: my way along a ridge that overlooked a marshy bottom
Speaker 5: where elk sometimes came to feed in the early morning hours.
Speaker 5: The ground was soft beneath my boots, carpeted with decades
Speaker 5: of fallen needles and moss that grew thick as shag
Speaker 5: carpet on every fallen log and rock. Visibility was maybe
Speaker 5: thirty yards in any direction through the fog. That's when
Speaker 5: I first noticed the tracks. At first glance, they looked human,
Speaker 5: but no human foot measures eighteen inches long and eight
Speaker 5: inches wide. The impressions were pressed deep into the soft
Speaker 5: earth near a small creek, deeper than my own two
Speaker 5: hundred pound frame would have made in the same spot.
Speaker 5: Each toe was clearly defined, with what looked like claw
Speaker 5: marks extending from the tips. The stride length between prints
Speaker 5: measured close to five feet. I knelt down and studied
Speaker 5: them more carefully. The tracks were fresh, maybe an hour
Speaker 5: old at most. Water was still seeping into the deepest
Speaker 5: parts of the impressions. Whatever had made them was massive
Speaker 5: and had passed through this area just after dawn. My
Speaker 5: first instinct was to follow them. Curiosity has always been
Speaker 5: my weakness, and in all my years in these woods,
Speaker 5: I'd never seen anything like this. The trail led away
Speaker 5: from the creek and up a steep embankment covered in
Speaker 5: thick salmon berry and Devil's club. The underbrush showed clear
Speaker 5: signs of something large pushing through broken branches and crushed vegetation,
Speaker 5: creating an obvious path. As I climbed, the four seemed
Speaker 5: to grow quieter. The usual chatter of squirrels and the
Speaker 5: distant calls of ravens faded away, until the only sound
Speaker 5: was my own labored breathing and the soft squelch of
Speaker 5: my boots in the muddy earth. The fog was lifting slightly,
Speaker 5: but the canopy above was so thick that very little
Speaker 5: light reached the forest floor. It felt like walking through
Speaker 5: a living cave. The tracks led me along the ridge
Speaker 5: for nearly half a mile before they turned sharply and
Speaker 5: headed down into a ravine i'd never explored before. The
Speaker 5: sides were steep, and covered with loose shale that made
Speaker 5: footing treacherous. About halfway down, I stopped to catch my breath,
Speaker 5: and that's when I realized I was being watched. The
Speaker 5: feeling hit me like a physical blow to the chest.
Speaker 5: Every hunter knows that sensation, the primitive awareness that you've
Speaker 5: become the hunted. The hair on the back of my
Speaker 5: neck stood up, and my mouth went dry. I turned slowly,
Speaker 5: scanning the forest around me, but saw nothing except the
Speaker 5: endless maze of tree trunks and shadows. But the smell
Speaker 5: hit me then, Not the sweet decay of rotting vegetation
Speaker 5: or the musty scent of damp earth. This was something else, entirely,
Speaker 5: something organic and alive. It reminded me of a wet
Speaker 5: dog that had been rolling in mud. But underneath that
Speaker 5: was something sharper, more acrid, like the smell of fierce sweat,
Speaker 5: but magnified one hundredfold. I continued down the ravine, moving
Speaker 5: more slowly now, my rifle ready but feeling inadequate in
Speaker 5: my hands. The thirty six that had dropped dozens of
Speaker 5: elk over the years suddenly seemed like a toy. At
Speaker 5: the bottom of the ravine was a small stream, maybe
Speaker 5: three feet wide, running crystal clear over rounded stones. The
Speaker 5: tracks continued across it and up the opposite bank. That's
Speaker 5: where I found the tree. It was a western red cedar,
Speaker 5: probably eight feet in diameter and ancient even by old
Speaker 5: growth standards. But about twelve feet up the trunk, someone
Speaker 5: or something had twisted of off branches as thick as
Speaker 5: my arm and woven them together in a crude but
Speaker 5: deliberate pattern. The fresh sap was still bleeding from the wounds,
Speaker 5: and some of the branches were still green and flexible.
Speaker 5: Whatever had done this possessed incredible strength and had been
Speaker 5: here very recently. I was studying the tree when I
Speaker 5: heard the sound. It started low, almost below the range
Speaker 5: of human hearing, a rumbling that seemed to come from
Speaker 5: the earth itself. Then it rose in pitch and volume
Speaker 5: until it became a vocalization unlike anything I'd ever heard.
Speaker 5: Not quite a roar, not quite a scream, but something
Speaker 5: that combined the worst elements of both. The sound echoed
Speaker 5: off the walls of the ravine and seemed to go
Speaker 5: on forever. Every instinct I had screamed at me to run,
Speaker 5: but my legs felt like they were filled with concrete.
Speaker 5: I stood there, rifle raised but shaking in my hands,
Speaker 5: scanning the forest around me. The sound had come from
Speaker 5: somewhere ahead, deeper in the ravine, but the acoustics made
Speaker 5: it impossible to pinpoint exactly where. About sixty yards away,
Speaker 5: standing motionless between two massive Douglas firs, was a shape
Speaker 5: that didn't belong. At first, my brain tried to make
Speaker 5: sense of it, to categorize it as a stump or
Speaker 5: a boulder, or anything else that would fit into the
Speaker 5: natural order of things. But as my eyes adjusted and focused,
Speaker 5: there was no denying what I was looking at. It
Speaker 5: stood nearly eight feet tall, covered in dark brown hair
Speaker 5: that seemed to ripple and flow as it breathed. The
Speaker 5: shoulders were impossibly broad, at least four feet across, and
Speaker 5: the arms hung down past where the knees should be.
Speaker 5: But it was the face that froze my blood. Even
Speaker 5: at that distance, I could see the eyes, dark and intelligent,
Speaker 5: watching me with the same calculating stare a wolf gives
Speaker 5: a deer before it decides whether to attack or move on.
Speaker 5: We stared at each other for what felt like hours
Speaker 5: but was probably only seconds. Then, without any warning or sundund.
Speaker 5: It simply melted back into the forest. One moment it
Speaker 5: was there, solid and undeniably real, the next it had vanished,
Speaker 5: as if it had never existed at all. I stood
Speaker 5: there for several more minutes, waiting for something else to happen,
Speaker 5: but the forest had returned to its previous quiet, and
Speaker 5: gradually the normal sounds of birds and small animals began again.
Speaker 5: When I finally worked up the courage to move, I
Speaker 5: backed away, slowly, never taking my eyes off the spot
Speaker 5: where the creature had stood. I didn't follow the tracks
Speaker 5: any further. Instead, I made my way back to camp
Speaker 5: as quickly as the terrain would allow, broke down my gear,
Speaker 5: and hiked out to my truck. The entire eight mile
Speaker 5: trek back to the logging road was accomplished in record time,
Speaker 5: fueled by adrenaline and the constant feeling that I was
Speaker 5: being followed. I never saw anything directly behind me, but
Speaker 5: several times I heard branches breaking in the forest parallel
Speaker 5: to the trail I was following. Whatever was back there
Speaker 5: was keeping pace with me, staying just out of sight,
Speaker 5: but making sure I knew it was there. The message
Speaker 5: was clear, I was being escorted out of its territory.
Speaker 5: That was thirty five years ago, and I've never been
Speaker 5: back to that particular area of the Olympics. I still hunt,
Speaker 5: but I stick to areas closer to civilization now, places
Speaker 5: where the sound of logging trucks and chainsaws reminds you
Speaker 5: that humanity hasn't been completely swallowed up by the wilderness.
Speaker 5: I've told this story to exactly three people over the years,
Speaker 5: my brother, my son, and now you. Each time I
Speaker 5: see the same look in their eyes. The polite skepticism
Speaker 5: that says they think stress or isolation, or maybe just
Speaker 5: too much time alone in the woods has affected my judgment.
Speaker 5: But I know what I saw that day, and I
Speaker 5: know it was real. The locals in the small towns
Speaker 5: around the peninsula have stories, of course, they always have,
Speaker 5: but they don't talk about them much to outsiders, and
Speaker 5: they don't venture too far back into the old growth
Speaker 5: forests without good reason. They know, like I know now,
Speaker 5: that there are some places where humans are tolerated only
Speaker 5: as long as they remember their visitors in something else's home.
Speaker 5: That was nineteen ninety, the end of an era when
Speaker 5: vast stretches of American wilderness remained truly unknown, But even
Speaker 5: as the country became more connected, more mapped, more explored,
Speaker 5: the encounters continued. Three thousand miles away, in the opposite
Speaker 5: corner of the continent, another man in uniform would have
Speaker 5: his own life changing experience. Seven years earlier, twenty six
Speaker 5: years I worked for the main Department of Conservation, and
Speaker 5: the last fifteen of those were spent at Baxter State Park.
Speaker 5: In all that time, patrolling over two hundred thousand acres
Speaker 5: of wilderness, dealing with everything from lost hikers to aggressive moose.
Speaker 5: I thought I'd seen everything the North Woods had to offer.
Speaker 3: I was wrong.
Speaker 5: August of nineteen seventy four was one of the wettest
Speaker 5: on record. The Panobscot River was running high and fast,
Speaker 5: and several of the smaller streams that usually dried up
Speaker 5: to a trickle by Midsummer were flowing like spring freshets.
Speaker 5: The constant rain had driven most of the wildlife deeper
Speaker 5: into the forest, and we'd had fewer bare encounters than usual,
Speaker 5: which was both a blessing and a mystery. I was
Speaker 5: three days into a backcountry patrol, checking campsites and trail
Speaker 5: conditions along the Appalachian Trail Corridor near Mount Catadan. The
Speaker 5: rain had finally stopped, but the forest was still dripping constantly,
Speaker 5: and the air was thick with humidity and the smell
Speaker 5: of wet earth and decaying leaves. Visibility was limited by
Speaker 5: low hanging clouds that drifted between the peaks like ghostly fingers.
Speaker 5: My route that day took me along the old Tote
Speaker 5: road that connected several of the remote ponds on the
Speaker 5: eastern side of the park. It was primitive even by
Speaker 5: main standards, more of a game trail than an actual road,
Speaker 5: marked only by occasional blazes cut into the bark of
Speaker 5: ancient white pines and sugar maples. The footing was treacherous
Speaker 5: from all the rain, with hi and roots and rocks
Speaker 5: lurking beneath a carpet of wet leaves. And stay tuned
Speaker 5: for more Sasquatch oat to see. We'll be right back
Speaker 5: after these messages. Today, I want to tell you about
Speaker 5: a journey that I've been on for most of my life.
Speaker 5: Ever since I was a kid, I've heard tales of
Speaker 5: bigfoot and wild men while spending time with my friends
Speaker 5: and family. As I grew older and read more about
Speaker 5: the paranormal, my interest in encryptids and other things strange
Speaker 5: only deepened. That's why I'm so excited to share with
Speaker 5: you what I've personally become involved with The Untold Radio Network.
Speaker 5: The Untold Radio Network is a live streaming podcast network
Speaker 5: that airs a new show every day across all podcast platforms, YouTube,
Speaker 5: and more. They have eight different shows on all sorts
Speaker 5: of exciting topics such as bigfoot, cryptids, UFOs, aliens, and
Speaker 5: much more. I even have my own show called Weird Encounters,
Speaker 5: where I talk about all things strange. This is more
Speaker 5: than just a podcast network. It's a community that allows
Speaker 5: me to meet so many amazing people who share their
Speaker 5: stories and experiences with the strange. If you're interested in
Speaker 5: hearing more of these stories and learning more about the
Speaker 5: paranormal encryptids, make sure you check out the Untold Radio
Speaker 5: Network for all kinds of exciting shows. It's free to subscribe.
Speaker 5: So what are you waiting for? Visit www dot untold
Speaker 5: radionetwork dot com. Today, I was maybe five miles from
Speaker 5: the nearest maintained trail when I came across the first
Speaker 5: sign that something was off. A large birch tree maybe
Speaker 5: two feet in diameter had been snapped off about eight
Speaker 5: feet from the ground, not cut or sawed, but twisted
Speaker 5: and broken, as if something had grabbed it and wrenched
Speaker 5: it apart with brute force. The break was fresh, with
Speaker 5: bright white wood showing where the trunk had been severed.
Speaker 5: Storm damage was always a possibility in the main woods,
Speaker 5: but there hadn't been any significant wind in the past week,
Speaker 5: just steady rain, and the way the tree had been
Speaker 5: broken suggested something had grabbed it from below and twisted upward,
Speaker 5: not the downward pressure you'd expect from wind or falling debris.
Speaker 5: I took some photographs from my report and continued along
Speaker 5: the trail. About a quarter mile further on, I found
Speaker 5: more evidence of disturbance. Saplings had been pushed aside or
Speaker 5: broken off, creating a path that diverged from the main
Speaker 5: trail and headed deeper into the forest. The undergrowth showed
Speaker 5: clear signs of something large passing through, but the tracks
Speaker 5: in the muddy ground were unlike anything in my field guides.
Speaker 5: As a ranger, I'd learned to follow my instincts, and
Speaker 5: every instinct I had was telling me to radio for
Speaker 5: backup and wait for assistance. But curiosity got the better
Speaker 5: of me, and I decided to follow the trail for
Speaker 5: a short distance to see where it led. That decision
Speaker 5: nearly cost me everything. The path led through increasingly dense forest,
Speaker 5: winding between massive granite boulders left behind by glaciers thousands
Speaker 5: of years ago. The canopy above was so thick that
Speaker 5: even in mid afternoon, the light barely penetrated to the
Speaker 5: forest floor. The air seemed to grow heavier with each step,
Speaker 5: and the normal sounds of the forest, the chirping of
Speaker 5: birds and the rustling of small animals in the underbrush,
Speaker 5: gradually faded away until the only sound was my own breathing.
Speaker 5: After about half a mile, the trail led to a
Speaker 5: small clearing beside a beaver pond that wasn't marked on
Speaker 5: any of my maps. The water was dark and still
Speaker 5: reflecting the overcast sky like a black mirror. Along the shoreline,
Speaker 5: the mud was churned up, as if something large had
Speaker 5: been waiting or drinking there recently. But what caught my
Speaker 5: attention were the structures on the far side of the pond.
Speaker 5: Three trees had been uprooted and arranged in a rough triangle,
Speaker 5: their root systems still clinging to clods of earth and rock.
Speaker 5: They hadn't fallen naturally. They'd been deliberately placed to form
Speaker 5: what looked like a primitive shelter or marker. Inside the triangle,
Speaker 5: smaller branches had been woven together to create a kind
Speaker 5: of nest or bed lined with fresh moss and ferns.
Speaker 5: I was studying this construction through my binoculars when I
Speaker 5: heard the sound. It started as a low, whooping call,
Speaker 5: unlike anything I'd heard in my years in the main woods.
Speaker 5: Not the territorial call of a moose or the howl
Speaker 5: of a coyote, but something that seemed to combine elements
Speaker 5: of both while being distinctly neither. The sound came from
Speaker 5: somewhere across the pond, echoing off the water and the
Speaker 5: surrounding trees. Then came an answering call from somewhere behind me.
Speaker 5: I spun around my hand, instinctively, going to the three
Speaker 5: point fifty seven revolver on my hip, though I suspected
Speaker 5: it would be about as effective as a pop gun
Speaker 5: against whatever was making those sounds. The forest around me
Speaker 5: looked the same as it had moments before, but something
Speaker 5: had changed. The quality of the silence was different, more oppressive.
Speaker 5: I backed toward the edge of the clearing, my eyes
Speaker 5: scanning the tree line for any sign of movement. That's
Speaker 5: when I saw them, two shapes, barely visible in the
Speaker 5: shadows between the trees on the opposite side of the pond.
Speaker 5: They stood upright like humans, but were far too large
Speaker 5: and covered in what appeared to be coarse, dark hair.
Speaker 5: Even at a distance of maybe two hundred yards, I
Speaker 5: could tell they were massive, probably eight feet tall or more,
Speaker 5: with shoulders that would have made a professional linebacker look small.
Speaker 1: One of them.
Speaker 5: Stepped slightly forward out of the deepest shadows, and for
Speaker 5: a moment I got a clear look at its face.
Speaker 5: The features were distinctly non human, but disturbingly familiar. The
Speaker 5: brow ridge was heavy and pronounced, the jaw jutted forward,
Speaker 5: and the nose was flat and wide. But the eyes
Speaker 5: were what struck me most. They weren't the dull, vacant
Speaker 5: eyes of an animal. They showed intelligence, awareness, and something
Speaker 5: that looked disturbingly like recognition. We stared at each other
Speaker 5: across the dark water for several long seconds. Then the
Speaker 5: creature raised one massive arm and pointed directly at me,
Speaker 5: not in a threatening gesture, but more like it was
Speaker 5: identifying me. To its companion. The second creature stepped forward well,
Speaker 5: and I could see that it was even larger than
Speaker 5: the first. That's when my nerve finally broke. I turned
Speaker 5: and ran, crashing through the underbrush with all the stealth
Speaker 5: and dignity of a panicked deer. Branches tore at my
Speaker 5: uniform and pack, and I slipped several times on the
Speaker 5: wet leaves, but I didn't slow down until I reached
Speaker 5: the main trail nearly a mile away. My radio crackled
Speaker 5: with routine traffic from other rangers, the normal sounds of
Speaker 5: civilization that seemed impossibly distant from what I just experienced.
Speaker 5: I didn't report the encounter officially, who would have believed it. Instead,
Speaker 5: I marked the area on my personal maps and made
Speaker 5: sure that future patrols avoided that particular section of the park.
Speaker 5: Over the years, I've had a few occasions to return
Speaker 5: to the general area, but I never found that unmarked
Speaker 5: beaver pond again, despite having what I thought were accurate coordinates.
Speaker 5: But I wasn't the only one who'd had unusual experiences
Speaker 5: in that part of the park. Over the next few years,
Speaker 5: I started paying closer attention to the reports that came
Speaker 5: in from hikers and campers, sounds in the night that
Speaker 5: didn't match any known wildlife, large footprints found near camp sites,
Speaker 5: structures made from arranged branches, and logs that showed clear
Speaker 5: signs of intelligent construction. Most of these reports were dismissed
Speaker 5: as hoaxes or misidentifications, and I went along with the
Speaker 5: official explanations. But I started keeping my own files documenting
Speaker 5: patterns and locations. What I found was that all of
Speaker 5: these incidents occurred within a roughly ten square mile area
Speaker 5: of the park's most remote backcountry, an area that included
Speaker 5: the Beaver Pond where I'd had my encounter. After I
Speaker 5: retired in nineteen eighty nine, I turned my files over
Speaker 5: to a colleague who I knew had had his own
Speaker 5: unexplained experiences in the park. He since retired as well,
Speaker 5: and I don't know what became of those records. Officially,
Speaker 5: Baxter State Park has never had any confirmed encounters with
Speaker 5: unknown wildlife, but the park is huge, over three hundreds
Speaker 5: square miles of wilderness, and there are vast areas that
Speaker 5: see maybe one or two visitors per year. The north
Speaker 5: Woods of Maine have always harbored secrets, and the Panobscot
Speaker 5: and Passamaquaddie tribes have stories that go back centuries about
Speaker 5: creatures that walk upright like men, but live apart from
Speaker 5: human civilization. I've never spoken publicly about what I saw
Speaker 5: that day in nineteen seventy four, But now that I'm
Speaker 5: in my eighties and facing the reality that these stories
Speaker 5: die with the people who experience them, I feel an
Speaker 5: obligation to add my voice to the record. What I
Speaker 5: saw was real, and it was intelligent, and it was
Speaker 5: aware of my presence in its territory. Whether it was
Speaker 5: the last remnant of some unknown species or something else entirely,
Speaker 5: I can't say, but I know that the Deep Woods
Speaker 5: of Maine still hold mysteries that science hasn't cataloged and
Speaker 5: probably never will. Some boundaries are meant to remain uncrossed,
Speaker 5: and some questions are better left unanswered. The forest keeps
Speaker 5: its own council, and those of us who work in
Speaker 5: it learned to respect that silence. The north Woods of
Speaker 5: Maine and the Pacific Northwest get most of the attention
Speaker 5: when people talk about bigfoot encounters, but the creature or
Speaker 5: creatures don't respect regional boundaries. The Appalachian Mountains stretching from
Speaker 5: Georgia to Canada have their own long history of unexplained encounters.
Speaker 5: In the summer of nineteen sixty five, nine years before
Speaker 5: that Ranger's experience in Maine, a wilderness guide in North
Speaker 5: Carolina would discover that the Blue Ridge Mountains held secrets
Speaker 5: of their own. I'd been guiding hunting and fishing parties
Speaker 5: through the Blue Ridge Mountains for almost a decade when
Speaker 5: the Hendersons hired me for what they called a wilderness
Speaker 5: photography expedition. They were from New York City, a father
Speaker 5: and his college aged son, both carrying more camera equipment
Speaker 5: than most professional photographers I'd known. The plan was simple,
Speaker 5: spend five days deep in the Pizga National Forest, camping
Speaker 5: in areas where few people ventured, documenting what they ca
Speaker 5: called the authentic Southern Appalachian wilderness experience. September in the
Speaker 5: Carolina Mountains is about as perfect as weather gets. The
Speaker 5: summer heat was breaking, but the real cold hadn't set
Speaker 5: in yet. The leaves were just starting to turn, painting
Speaker 5: the ridges in subtle shades of gold and red. We'd
Speaker 5: had enough rain to keep the streams running clear and cold,
Speaker 5: and the morning mist would rise from the valleys like
Speaker 5: smoke from some ancient fire. I took them into an
Speaker 5: area I knew well, about twelve miles south of the
Speaker 5: Blue Ridge Parkway, where old Cherokee hunting trails wound through
Speaker 5: stands of virgin timber that had somehow escaped the logger's saws.
Speaker 5: The terrain was challenging, but not dangerous for experienced hikers,
Speaker 5: with plenty of scenic overlooks and wildlife viewing opportunities that
Speaker 5: would give them the shots they were looking for. Our
Speaker 5: first two days went perfectly. The Hendersons proved to be
Speaker 5: competent outdoorsmen despite their city origins, and young Michael had
Speaker 5: a real eye for photography. He captured images of morning
Speaker 5: mists rising from hidden valleys, ancient rhododendron thickets, and mountain
Speaker 5: streams that looked like they'd never felt the touch of
Speaker 5: human hands. His father focused more on the broader landscapes,
Speaker 5: the endless ridges fading into blue distance that gave these
Speaker 5: mountains their name. On the third day, we were camped
Speaker 5: in a small meadow beside Laurel Creek, maybe eight miles
Speaker 5: from the nearest Forest Service road. The site was one
Speaker 5: of my favorites, surrounded by towering white oaks and tulip poplars,
Speaker 5: with a clear view of the surrounding ridges. The Hendersons
Speaker 5: had spent the day photographing a family of black bears
Speaker 5: that had wandered through the area, keeping a respectful distance
Speaker 5: but getting some remarkable shots. That evening, as we sat
Speaker 5: around the campfire sharing stories and planning the next day's route,
Speaker 5: Michael mentioned that he'd been hearing odd sounds during the night.
Speaker 5: Not the usual nocturnal symphony of owls and whipper wheels,
Speaker 5: but something else, something that seemed to move through the
Speaker 5: forest parallel to our camp. His father had noticed it too,
Speaker 5: but neither of them seemed particularly concerned. City folks often
Speaker 5: have trouble sleeping in the woods at first, overwhelmed by
Speaker 5: sounds that seem unnaturally loud in the darkness. I'd heard
Speaker 5: the sounds as well, but hadn't thought much of them.
Speaker 5: Large animals moving through the forest at night wasn't unusual,
Speaker 5: and the sound seemed to come from far enough away
Speaker 5: that they posed no immediate threat. Bears, deer, even the
Speaker 5: occasional wild boar, would create plenty of noise crashing through
Speaker 5: the underbrush especially if they were startled or just passing
Speaker 5: through their territory. The fourth morning changed everything. I woke
Speaker 5: before dawn, as was my habit, to get the fire
Speaker 5: started and coffee brewing before my clients stirred. The forest
Speaker 5: was wrapped in that peculiar stillness that comes just before sunrise,
Speaker 5: when even the night sounds have faded, but the day
Speaker 5: shift hasn't yet taken over. I was crouched beside the
Speaker 5: fire ring arranging kindling when I noticed the smell. It
Speaker 5: wasn't the clean scent of wood smoke or the earthy
Speaker 5: aroma of morning mist. This was something organic and potent,
Speaker 5: like wet fur mixed with something sharper and more pungent.
Speaker 5: Not unpleasant exactly, but definitely foreign to these mountains. I'd
Speaker 5: smelled black bear at close range, and this wasn't that.
Speaker 5: This was something else entirely. I looked around the campsite
Speaker 5: more carefully and noticed that our food, which we'd hung
Speaker 5: properly in a bare bag twelve feet up a nearby
Speaker 5: oak tree, was undisturbed. That's when I found the footprints.
Speaker 5: They were in a muddy patch beside the creek, maybe
Speaker 5: thirty yards from our tents. At first glance, they looked
Speaker 5: almost human, but the proportions were all wrong. Each print
Speaker 5: was nearly sixteen inches long, and the heel impression was
Speaker 5: deep and round. The stride length between prints was at
Speaker 5: least four feet. I called the Hendersons over to look,
Speaker 5: and Michael immediately started photographing the tracks from multiple angles,
Speaker 5: while his father took measurements and made sketches in his
Speaker 5: field notebook. They were excited by the discovery, speculating that
Speaker 5: they might have stumbled onto evidence of some unknown species,
Speaker 5: or possibly a hoax left by previous campers. But I
Speaker 5: knew these mountains too well to dismiss the tracks as
Speaker 5: a prank. We were miles from any established trail in
Speaker 5: an area that maybe saw a dozen visitors per year.
Speaker 5: The prints were too perfect, too detailed, and too fresh
Speaker 5: to have been manufactured. Whatever had made them had been
Speaker 5: in our camp during the night, close enough to touch
Speaker 5: our equipment, and we'd never known it was there. We
Speaker 5: spent most of that morning following the trail of footprints.
Speaker 5: They led away from the creek and up a steep
Speaker 5: ridge covered in mountain laurel and rhododendron so thick it
Speaker 5: formed natural tunnels through the vegetation. The creature had pushed
Speaker 5: through this nearly impenetrable thicket with ease, leaving broken branches
Speaker 5: and crushed foliage in its wake. About halfway up the ridge,
Speaker 5: the trail led to a small clearing where several large
Speaker 5: stone had been arranged in what looked like a deliberate pattern.
Speaker 5: And stay tuned for more sasquatch ott to see.
Speaker 1: We'll be right back after.
Speaker 5: These messages not random placement, but organized purposeful, as if
Speaker 5: someone had been trying to create some kind of structure
Speaker 5: or marker. In the center of the arrangement was a
Speaker 5: pile of fresh pine boughs, still green and aromatic, woven
Speaker 5: together in a loose, nest like construction. Michael was photographing
Speaker 5: everything when his father grabbed my arm and pointed toward
Speaker 5: the opposite side of the clearing. Standing just inside the
Speaker 5: tree line, partially hidden by the shadows and thick vegetation,
Speaker 5: was a shape that didn't belong to any animal I'd
Speaker 5: ever seen in these mountains. It stood upright like a man,
Speaker 5: but was far too large and covered in coarse, dark
Speaker 5: brown hair that seemed to ripple in the morning breeze.
Speaker 5: The shoulders were impossibly broad, but it was the head
Speaker 5: that held my attention. The skull was a long d
Speaker 5: and peaked, with a pronounced ridge above the eyes, and
Speaker 5: the face was a disturbing mixture of human and ape
Speaker 5: like features. We stared at each other across the clearing.
Speaker 5: The creature showed no sign of fear or aggression, just
Speaker 5: a kind of patient curiosity, as if it was studying
Speaker 5: us the same way we were studying it. Then, without
Speaker 5: any sound or sudden movement, it simply stepped backward into
Speaker 5: the deeper shadows, and it was gone. The three of
Speaker 5: us stood in stunned silence for a long time after
Speaker 5: it disappeared. Michael had been too shocked to take any photographs,
Speaker 5: and his father's hands were shaking too badly to write
Speaker 5: in his notebook. We were experienced outdoorsmen, not prone to
Speaker 5: hysteria or flights of fancy, but what we'd just witnessed
Speaker 5: challenged everything we thought we knew about the natural world.
Speaker 5: We made our way back to camp in subdued silence,
Speaker 5: each of us trying to process what we'd seen. The
Speaker 5: Hendersons wanted to return to the clearing and set up
Speaker 5: a longer observation post, but every instinct idea developed in
Speaker 5: nearly ten years of guiding told me that would be
Speaker 5: a mistake. Whatever we'd encountered had allowed us to see it,
Speaker 5: possibly even wanted us to see it, but that didn't
Speaker 5: mean it would tolerate extended intrusion into its territory. That night,
Speaker 5: the sounds around our camp were different. Instead of the
Speaker 5: distant crashing through underbrush we'd heard on previous nights, there
Speaker 5: were closer sounds, more deliberate, the sounds of large feet
Speaker 5: circling our camp site, the occasional crack of a branch.
Speaker 5: Most unsettling of all, what sounded like soft vocalizations, low
Speaker 5: whooping calls that seemed to come from multiple directions at once.
Speaker 5: None of us slept much that night. We took turns
Speaker 5: keeping the fire burning bright and staying alert for any
Speaker 5: sign of immediate danger, but whatever was out there in
Speaker 5: the darkness seemed content to observe from a distance. When
Speaker 5: dawn finally came, we found fresh tracks around the perimeter
Speaker 5: of our camp, as if something had been patrolling our
Speaker 5: site throughout the night. We broke camp that morning and
Speaker 5: hiked out to the truck a day earlier than planned.
Speaker 5: The Hendersons had gotten their wilderness photography expedition, but not
Speaker 5: in the way any of us had expected. Michael's photographs
Speaker 5: of the footprints and the stone arrangement came out perfectly,
Speaker 5: but he's never shown them to anyone outside his immediate family.
Speaker 5: The experience changed all of us in ways that are
Speaker 5: difficult to explain. I continued guiding in the Pisga National
Speaker 5: Forest for another fifteen years, but I never took clients
Speaker 5: back to that particular area. Several times over the years,
Speaker 5: I returned alone to see if I could find any
Speaker 5: additional evidence, But the forest had reclaimed the clearing where
Speaker 5: we'd had our encounter. The stone arrangement was gone, scattered,
Speaker 5: or removed, and the area showed no signs of continued
Speaker 5: unusual activity. But I've never forgotten those few moments when
Speaker 5: I stood face to face with something that science says
Speaker 5: doesn't exist. The mountains of North Carolina have been home
Speaker 5: to the Cherokee for thousands of years, and their led
Speaker 5: speak of creatures that walk upright like men, but live
Speaker 5: apart from human civilization. The old timers in the communities
Speaker 5: around the National Forest have their own stories passed down
Speaker 5: through generations of hunting and logging families. Most people dismiss
Speaker 5: these accounts as folklore or misidentification, and maybe their right.
Speaker 5: But I know what I saw that September morning in
Speaker 5: nineteen sixty five, and I know it was real. The
Speaker 5: Southern Appalachians are old mountains, worn smooth by millions of
Speaker 5: years of weather and time, and they harbor secrets that
Speaker 5: go deeper than most people realize. Some of those secrets
Speaker 5: are better left undisturbed, living reminders that human knowledge has limits,
Speaker 5: and that mystery still has a place in our increasingly
Speaker 5: cataloged world. The mountains of North Carolina were ancient when
Speaker 5: the first European settlers arrived, but the forests of northern
Speaker 5: Minnesota were shaped by more recent forces. Glaciers carved the
Speaker 5: landscape into a maze of lakes and streams, creating some
Speaker 5: one of the most remote wilderness left in the lower
Speaker 5: forty eight States. It was in this maze, during the
Speaker 5: difficult economic times of the early nineteen nineties, that a
Speaker 5: man seeking solitude would find far more than he bargained for.
Speaker 5: The plan had been simple enough, a solo backpacking trip
Speaker 5: through the Boundary Waters Canoe Area wilderness, taking advantage of
Speaker 5: the brief window between the end of hunting season and
Speaker 5: the arrival of serious winter weather. November and northern Minnesota
Speaker 5: can be unpredictable, but the forecast called for clear skies
Speaker 5: and temperatures in the thirties, perfect for the kind of
Speaker 5: solitary hiking that helps clear your head after a difficult year.
Speaker 5: I'd been through a messy divorce that summer, lost my
Speaker 5: job in the corporate downsizing that seemed to be hitting
Speaker 5: everyone in the early nineties, and needed time away from
Speaker 5: the relentless demands of modern life. The Superior National Forest
Speaker 5: offered exactly what I was looking for, a million acres
Speaker 5: of pristine wilderness where a man could walk for without
Speaker 5: seeing another human being or any trace of civilization beyond
Speaker 5: his own footprints. My route started from the gun Flint
Speaker 5: Trail and led deep into the back country along a
Speaker 5: series of portage trails that connected remote lakes and streams.
Speaker 5: The autumn colors had already peaked and fallen, leaving the
Speaker 5: hardwood forest bare and stark against the gray November sky.
Speaker 5: The conifers, mostly red and white pine with scattered stands
Speaker 5: of spruce and balsam fir, provided the only color in
Speaker 5: a landscape that seemed drained of warmth and life. Everything
Speaker 5: went wrong On the fourth night. The temperature had dropped
Speaker 5: below freezing and I was camped beside a small lake
Speaker 5: about six miles from the nearest trail. I chosen the
Speaker 5: spot because it felt isolated and peaceful, exactly what I
Speaker 5: needed after the divorce. Around midnight, I was jolted awake
Speaker 5: by the sound of something large crashing through the woods
Speaker 5: on the opposite shore. Not the careful movement of a
Speaker 5: deer or bear, but heavy, deliberate footsteps that seemed to
Speaker 5: circle the entire lake. I lay in my sleeping bag,
Speaker 5: listening as whatever it was made a complete circuit of
Speaker 5: the water, the sounds getting closer each time it passed
Speaker 5: my camp site. Then came the first rock. It hit
Speaker 5: my tent with enough force to shake the entire structure,
Speaker 5: followed immediately by a low, guttural vocalization that sounded like
Speaker 5: a mix between a bear's roar and something almost human.
Speaker 5: I grabbed my flashlight and unzipped the tent, fly scanning
Speaker 5: the treeline across the lake. That's when I saw the eyes,
Speaker 5: two points of greenish light reflecting my beam, positioned about
Speaker 5: eight feet off the ground and spaced too far apart
Speaker 5: to belong to any animal I knew. They didn't move
Speaker 5: or blink, just stared at me with an intensity that
Speaker 5: made my skin crawl. When I shifted the light away
Speaker 5: and back again, they were gone. But the rock throwing
Speaker 5: had just begun. For the next hour, stones pelted my
Speaker 5: campsite with mechanical regularity, not random throws, but carefully aimed
Speaker 5: projectiles that hit my tent, my pack, even my cooking
Speaker 5: gear with deliberate precision. Each impact was followed by that
Speaker 5: same unsettling vocalization, now coming from multiple directions around the lake.
Speaker 5: I wasn't dealing with one creature. There were several of them,
Speaker 5: and they were coordinating their harassment. The vocalizations grew more
Speaker 5: complex as the night wore on. What started as simple
Speaker 5: grunts and roars evolved into what sounded almost like communication,
Speaker 5: different tones and patterns that seemed to be responses to
Speaker 5: each other. Whatever these things were, they were talking, and
Speaker 5: I was the subject of their conversation. Around three am,
Speaker 5: they got bold enough to approach my camp site directly.
Speaker 5: I could hear heavy breathing just outside my tent, so
Speaker 5: close that the fabric moved with each exhalation. Something brushed
Speaker 5: against the guylines, testing their tension, while footsteps circled my
Speaker 5: shelter with what seemed like deliberate slowness. The closest one
Speaker 5: made a sound I'll never forget, a low rumbling that
Speaker 5: I felt in my chest as much as heard with
Speaker 5: my ears, like a massive cat's purr mixed with a growl.
Speaker 5: It was right next to my head, separated only by
Speaker 5: a thin layer of nylon fabric. I stayed perfectly still,
Speaker 5: barely breathing, until the sounds finally moved away toward dawn.
Speaker 5: When the first light appeared, I packed my gear with
Speaker 5: shaking hands and started the longest hike of my life
Speaker 5: back to the parking area. But they weren't done with
Speaker 5: me yet. The entire six mile trek out became a
Speaker 5: gauntlet of psychological warfare. I could hear them pacing me
Speaker 5: through the forest, staying just out of sight, but making
Speaker 5: sure I knew they were there. Branches broke in the
Speaker 5: woods on both sides of the trail, Rocks sailed past
Speaker 5: my head close enough that I could feel the air displacement.
Speaker 5: Every few hundred yards. I'd catch glimpses of movement in
Speaker 5: my peripheral vision, dark shapes that vanished the moment I
Speaker 5: turned to look directly at them. But the eyes were
Speaker 5: the worst part. Whenever I stopped rest or check my map,
Speaker 5: I'd see those greenish reflections watching me from the forest.
Speaker 5: Multiple pairs positioned at different heights and distances. About three
Speaker 5: miles from my car, one of them stepped partially into view.
Speaker 5: It was massive, easily seven feet tall and built like
Speaker 5: a linebacker, covered in dark hair that hung in coarse patches.
Speaker 5: But what struck me most was how human like its
Speaker 5: posture was, standing fully upright with arms that hung nearly
Speaker 5: to its knees. It watched me for maybe ten seconds,
Speaker 5: then melted back into the forest without making a sound.
Speaker 5: The last mile was pure terror. The harassment intensified, as
Speaker 5: if they knew I was almost to safety. Rocks flew
Speaker 5: constantly now, and the vocalizations grew louder and more aggressive.
Speaker 5: Something heavy crashed through the underbrush just ahead of me,
Speaker 5: and I could smell a rank, musky odor that reminded
Speaker 5: me of a zoo's primate house. I reached my car
Speaker 5: at a dead run and through my gear in the
Speaker 5: back without even looking behind me. As I drove away,
Speaker 5: I could see shapes moving at the forest edge in
Speaker 5: my rear view mirror, watching my departure with what seemed
Speaker 5: like satisfaction. I've never been back to that part of
Speaker 5: the Superior National Forest, and I've never told this story
Speaker 5: to anyone who might think I was crazy. But sometimes
Speaker 5: on quiet nights, I still wake up hearing those vocalizations
Speaker 5: and feeling like something is watching me through the darkness.
Speaker 5: The ojibwe have stories about creatures in those woods, beings
Speaker 5: they say are guardians of the deep forest who don't
Speaker 5: appreciate human intrusion. After what I experienced, I think they
Speaker 5: might be right. Some places are meant to stay wild,
Speaker 5: and some boundaries shouldn't be crossed. Our next account moves
Speaker 5: us forward eight years and over one thousand miles west
Speaker 5: to the volcanic landscape of Mount Saint Helens in Washington State.
Speaker 5: By two thousand and three, the mountain's blast zone had
Speaker 5: become a living laboratory for studying ecological recovery, but some
Speaker 5: forms of life that return to the devastated landscape weren't
Speaker 5: in any scientific textbook. A veteran search and rescue volunteer
Speaker 5: would learn that when people go missing in the shadow
Speaker 5: of an active volcano, sometimes what you find challenges everything
Speaker 5: you thought you knew about the creatures that call the
Speaker 5: wilderness home. The call came in just after dawn a
Speaker 5: family of three missing in the blast zone near Mount
Speaker 5: Saint Helen's. The Yamadas had been camping at Swift Creek
Speaker 5: and failed to check out or return home as scheduled.
Speaker 5: What should have been a routine search and rescue operation
Speaker 5: turned into the most terrifying experience of my eight year
Speaker 5: volunteer career. We found their abandoned campsite within the first hour.
Speaker 5: The tent was still standing, but something had clearly gone
Speaker 5: wrong during the night. Gear was scattered everywhere, sleeping bags
Speaker 5: dragged outside and left in the dirt. The camp chairs
Speaker 5: were overturned, and their food cooler had been ripped open
Speaker 5: with what looked like claw marks. But the most unsettling
Speaker 5: discovery was the silence. Mount Saint Helen's recovering ecosystem usually
Speaker 5: buzzed with bird calls and insect activity, but the entire
Speaker 5: area around their campsite was dead quiet, not even wind
Speaker 5: in the trees. We split into teams to cover more ground,
Speaker 5: and I was paired with Janet to search the northeast quadrant.
Speaker 5: About two miles from the campsite, we found the first
Speaker 5: sign of what we were really dealing with, a line
Speaker 5: of depressions in the soft volcanic soil that were definitely footprints,
Speaker 5: but far too large to be human. Each print was massive,
Speaker 5: easily twice the size of my boot, with clear tow
Speaker 5: impressions and a stride length that suggested something over seven
Speaker 5: feet tall. The tracks led deeper into the blast zone,
Speaker 5: toward terrain so rough that experienced hikers would need ropes
Speaker 5: and climbing gear to navigate safely. We followed the trail
Speaker 5: for another mile before we heard the first scream. It
Speaker 5: came from somewhere ahead of us, high pitched and clearly human,
Speaker 5: a woman's voice echoing off the volcanic ridges. But mixed
Speaker 5: with it was something else, a deeper roar that made
Speaker 5: the hair on my neck stand up. We radioed our
Speaker 5: position and pushed forward, moving as fast as the treacherous
Speaker 5: terrain would allow. The sounds led us into a narrow
Speaker 5: canyon that had been carved by the eruption's debris flows.
Speaker 5: The walls were steep and unstable, covered in loose rock
Speaker 5: that could avalanche at any disturbance. At the bottom of
Speaker 5: the canyon, we found evidence of a struggle, torn fabric
Speaker 5: caught on sharp rocks, scattered personal items, and more of
Speaker 5: those massive footprints. That's when we realized we were being watched.
Speaker 5: Eyes reflected our flashlight beams from ledges high up on
Speaker 5: the canyon walls. Multiple pairs positioned at impossible heights where
Speaker 5: nothing should have been able to climb. They didn't move
Speaker 5: or blink, just tracked our movements with predatory focus. Janet
Speaker 5: grabbed my arm and pointed upward. Something large was moving
Speaker 5: along the rim of the canyon, paralleling our route, but
Speaker 5: staying just out of clear sight. Stay tuned for more
Speaker 5: sasquatch otta see, We'll be right back. After these messages,
Speaker 5: we could hear rocks dislodging under its weight, the scrape
Speaker 5: of claws on stone, and occasionally a low huffing sound
Speaker 5: that echoed off the canyon walls. We weren't alone down there,
Speaker 5: and whatever was watching us wasn't human. The harassment started
Speaker 5: small pebbles dropping from above just enough to get our attention,
Speaker 5: then larger rocks thrown with enough accuracy to land uncomfortably
Speaker 5: close to our position. Each impact was accompanied by what
Speaker 5: sounded like laughter, if animals could laugh, a series of
Speaker 5: grunting barks that came from multiple directions. We found the
Speaker 5: family huddled in a shallow cave about a quarter mile
Speaker 5: deeper into the canyon. They were alive, but traumatized, The
Speaker 5: parents shielding their teenage daughter while scanning the canyon walls
Speaker 5: with wild eyes. When they saw us, they nearly collapsed
Speaker 5: with relief. Their story came out in fragments between sobs.
Speaker 5: Something had surrounded their camp site during the night, multiple
Speaker 5: creatures that stayed just outside the range of their flashlights,
Speaker 5: but made themselves known through vocalizations and rock throwing. When
Speaker 5: the family tried to retreat to their car, the creatures
Speaker 5: had herded them deeper into the forest like wolves driving prey.
Speaker 5: The harassment had continued for hours, with the creatures taking
Speaker 5: turns approaching their hiding spots and forcing them to keep moving.
Speaker 5: They described glimpses of massive, hair covered figures that moved
Speaker 5: through the devastated landscape with impossible ease, leaping between boulders
Speaker 5: and scaling cliff faces that would challenge experienced rock climbers.
Speaker 5: Getting the family out of the canyon became a nightmare.
Speaker 5: Whatever was watching us from above grew more aggressive as
Speaker 5: we tried to leave, raining down rocks and debris with
Speaker 5: increasing intensity. The vocalizations grew louder and more coordinated, coming
Speaker 5: from all sides now in what sounded like an organized
Speaker 5: effort to trap us in the narrow space. About halfway out,
Speaker 5: one of them showed itself completely. It stood on a
Speaker 5: ledge maybe fifty feet above us, silhouetted against the gray sky.
Speaker 5: Even at that distance, its size was overwhelming, easily eight
Speaker 5: feet tall, with shoulders that looked powerful enough to move boulders.
Speaker 5: It watched us for several long moments, then threw back
Speaker 5: its head and let out a roar that echoed through
Speaker 5: the canyon like thunder. The sound was answered immediately from
Speaker 5: multiple locations around us. We were surrounded, and they wanted
Speaker 5: us to know it. The final push to get out
Speaker 5: of the canyon was pure chaos. Rocks flew constantly, now,
Speaker 5: some large enough to cause serious injury if they connected.
Speaker 5: The creatures crashed through the forest around us, staying just
Speaker 5: out of sight but making sure we knew they were there.
Speaker 5: The family's daughter broke down completely, and we had to
Speaker 5: carry her the last few hundred yards. We reached the
Speaker 5: search command post with a full scale rescue operation mobilizing
Speaker 5: around us. But when additional teams went back to investigate
Speaker 5: the canyon, they found nothing, no tracks, no evidence of
Speaker 5: the creatures we'd encountered, no sign that anything unusual had
Speaker 5: happened at all. The official report listed the incident as
Speaker 5: a case of the family getting lost and panicking in
Speaker 5: difficult terrain. The physical evidence we'd observed was attributed to
Speaker 5: misidentified bear signs and stress induced hallucinations, but those of
Speaker 5: us who were there knew what we'd experienced. I retired
Speaker 5: from search and rescue work two years later, but I
Speaker 5: still think about that day. In the blast zone. Mount
Speaker 5: Saint Helen's eruption created a unique landscape, vast areas of
Speaker 5: devastated terrain that provide perfect cover for things that don't
Speaker 5: want to be found. Maybe we discovered that some legends
Speaker 5: are based on reality, and that the recovering forest harbors
Speaker 5: more than just returning wildlife. The family never spoke publicly
Speaker 5: about their experience, but they moved to Florida within six months.
Speaker 5: They send me a Christmas card every year with the
Speaker 5: same message. Thank you for believing us. I always will.
Speaker 5: Our next account takes us forward in time to twenty nineteen,
Speaker 5: to the ancient peaks of New York's Adirondack Mountains. By
Speaker 5: this time, social media and smartphone cameras had made wilderness
Speaker 5: encounters harder to keep secret, but some experiences transcend documentation.
Speaker 5: Our final witness discovered that in the digital age, the
Speaker 5: most terrifying encounters are still the ones that leave no
Speaker 5: evidence behind, only memories that refuse to fade, and the
Speaker 5: certain knowledge that something was hunting him through the darkness.
Speaker 5: The weather alert came through just as I was finishing
Speaker 5: dinner at my camp site beside coldon lake, severe storm approaching,
Speaker 5: sudden temperature drop, possible early snow. I'd been backpacking for
Speaker 5: twenty years and felt confident riding it out. But I
Speaker 5: should have hiked out immediately. Some storms bring more than
Speaker 5: just bad weather. The first sign of trouble came around
Speaker 5: ten pe when every animal in the area went silent.
Speaker 5: Not the gradual quiet of creatures settling down for the night,
Speaker 5: but an abrupt, total silence that felt wrong. Even the
Speaker 5: lake stopped lapping against the shore, as if the entire
Speaker 5: landscape was frozen in fear. Then I heard the howl.
Speaker 5: It started low and mournful, like a wolf's call, but wrong, somehow,
Speaker 5: too long, too intelligent, with an almost human quality that
Speaker 5: made my skin crawl. The sound echoed off the surrounding peaks,
Speaker 5: and when it faded, it was answered by another howl
Speaker 5: from the opposite direction, then another, and another, until I
Speaker 5: realized I was surrounded by whatever was making those sounds.
Speaker 5: I retreated to my tent and zipped it shut, listening
Speaker 5: as the howls grew closer and more frequent. But the
Speaker 5: vocalizations weren't random. They followed patterns that suggested communication, coordination
Speaker 5: between multiple individuals. Whatever was out there was talking. Around midnight,
Speaker 5: they moved in closer. I could hear heavy paws moving
Speaker 5: through the forest around my campsite, circling at a distance
Speaker 5: of maybe thirty yards, Not the careful steps of wildlife,
Speaker 5: but deliberate, purposeful movement. Occasionally I'd catch glimpses of reflected
Speaker 5: light through my tent walls, eyes that glowed with an
Speaker 5: eerie green shine, positioned higher off the ground than any
Speaker 5: natural predator. The harassment started slowly. A stick would break
Speaker 5: in the forest, followed immediately by silence, then another break
Speaker 5: from a different direction. They were testing my nerves, seeing
Speaker 5: how I'd react to their presence. When I stayed silent
Speaker 5: and motionless, they escalated. The first rock hit my tent
Speaker 5: around one am, not large enough to cause damage, but
Speaker 5: thrown with enough accuracy to make their intent clear. They
Speaker 5: knew exactly where I was, and they wanted me to
Speaker 5: know they were there. Each impact was followed by a
Speaker 5: low growling sound that seemed to come from multiple throats,
Speaker 5: but it was the stalking behavior that truly terrified me.
Speaker 5: One of them approached my tent directly, moving with such
Speaker 5: stealth that I only knew it was there when I
Speaker 5: heard breathing just outside the fabric, deep rhythmic inhalations that
Speaker 5: told me something large was studying my scent, learning everything
Speaker 5: it could about the human hiding inside. When I shifted position,
Speaker 5: the breathing stopped. Then I heard what sounded like sniffing,
Speaker 5: as if the creature was following my movements by smell alone.
Speaker 5: It circled my tent, slowly, pausing at different points to investigate,
Speaker 5: occasionally making soft whimpering sounds that were disturbingly dog like.
Speaker 5: Around three AM, I made the mistake of looking outside.
Speaker 5: I unzipped the tent blide just enough to peer through
Speaker 5: and found myself staring directly into a pair of glowing
Speaker 5: eyes less than ten feet away. But these weren't the
Speaker 5: eyes of any normal animal. They showed an intelligence that
Speaker 5: was unmistakably aware of being observed. The creature held my
Speaker 5: gaze for several long seconds, then opened its mouth in
Speaker 5: what looked like a grin, revealing teeth that reflected my
Speaker 5: flashlight beam. The face was a nightmare fusion of wolf
Speaker 5: and human features, elongated muzzle filled with predator's teeth, but
Speaker 5: with an expression that was disturbingly knowing. When I jerked
Speaker 5: back and zipped the tent closed, I heard what could
Speaker 5: only be described as laughter, a series of barking sounds
Speaker 5: that held genuine amusement. They played with me for the
Speaker 5: rest of the night. Rocks pelted my campsite in carefully
Speaker 5: timed intervals, each throw designed to keep me awake and
Speaker 5: on edge. The vocalizations grew more complex, incorporating sounds that
Speaker 5: ranged from wolf howls to something that almost resembled human speech.
Speaker 5: When dawn finally came, I packed my gear in record
Speaker 5: time and started what became a seven mile run for
Speaker 5: my life. They followed me the entire way. About three
Speaker 5: miles from the trailhead, one of them stepped into the open.
Speaker 5: It stood in the middle of the trail, about fifty
Speaker 5: yards ahead, and my first thought was that someone was
Speaker 5: playing a prank. No animal could stand that upright or
Speaker 5: look that human. But as I got closer, the wrongness
Speaker 5: became obvious. The proportions were all off, too tall and
Speaker 5: too muscular, and a head that was distinctly canine despite
Speaker 5: the human posture. We stared at each other for a
Speaker 5: few seconds, then it dropped to all fours and loped
Speaker 5: off into the forest with a grace that no human
Speaker 5: in a costume could replicate. But not before I saw
Speaker 5: the intelligence in its eyes, ancient, calculating, and completely unafraid.
Speaker 5: The last few miles were a blur of terror and adrenaline.
Speaker 5: I reached my car at a dead sprint and drove
Speaker 5: straight home without stopping, constantly checking my mirrors for signs
Speaker 5: of pursuit. It wasn't until I was back in civilization,
Speaker 5: surrounded by traffic and noise, that I finally felt safe.
Speaker 5: I've researched the area extensively, then and found scattered reports
Speaker 5: dating back over a century of similar encounters in the
Speaker 5: Adirondack region. The descriptions are consistent, large wolf like creatures
Speaker 5: that display human intelligence and behavior, particularly an apparent enjoyment
Speaker 5: of psychological harassment. The local Howdenisaani traditions include stories about
Speaker 5: creatures they call night hunters that test humans who venture
Speaker 5: too deep into the wilderness. According to these accounts, the
Speaker 5: creatures aren't necessarily malevolent, but they don't tolerate disrespect for
Speaker 5: their territory. I still backpack regularly, but I stay closer
Speaker 5: to popular trails now. The Adirondack Park covers six million
Speaker 5: acres of mostly wild forest with vast areas that rarely
Speaker 5: see human visitors. It's entirely possible that remnant populations of
Speaker 5: unknown predators survive in such remote regions, especially if they've
Speaker 5: learned to avoid human contact. But sometimes, when conditions are
Speaker 5: right and someone ventures too far into their domain, they
Speaker 5: make their presence known. And once you've experienced that level
Speaker 5: of predatory intelligence focused on you personally, the wilderness never
Speaker 5: feels quite as peaceful again. Multiple encounters spanning decades and
Speaker 5: covering thousands of miles of North American wilderness, different witnesses,
Speaker 5: different creatures, but all sharing common threads that run deeper
Speaker 5: than coincidence. Each of these accounts came to us through
Speaker 5: different channels. The Boundary Water story from a retired engineer
Speaker 5: in Minneapolis who contacted us after hearing our show, The
Speaker 5: Mount Saint Helen's incident from a former search and rescue
Speaker 5: volunteer who finally felt ready to share his experience, and
Speaker 5: the Adirondack encounter from a social media post that led
Speaker 5: to hours of detailed interviews. What strikes us most about
Speaker 5: these stories isn't their dramatic elements, but their consistency, the
Speaker 5: intelligence displayed by these creatures, their apparent coordination and communication,
Speaker 5: their ability to remain hidden while making their presence it's
Speaker 5: unmistakably known to those who venture too deep into their territory.
Speaker 5: These aren't random monster encounters or cases of mistaken identity.
Speaker 5: There are accounts of interactions with beings that clearly understand
Speaker 5: human behavior, human psychology, and human limitations. Whether we're dealing
Speaker 5: with unknown species, interdimensional visitors, or something else entirely, one
Speaker 5: thing is certain. We're not alone in the wilderness. The
Speaker 5: vast forests of North America still hold secrets that science
Speaker 5: hasn't cataloged, Mysteries that are increasingly connected world hasn't solved.
Speaker 5: In an age of satellite imagery and GPS tracking, where
Speaker 5: every mountain peak has been photographed and every trail has
Speaker 5: been mapped, it's both humbling and terrifying to realize that
Speaker 5: there are still things watching us from the shadows of
Speaker 5: the deep woods. To our listeners who are planning their
Speaker 5: own wilderness adventures, respect the forest, respect its inhabitants, and
Speaker 5: remember that you're entering tearritory that belong to others long
Speaker 5: before humans ever set foot on this continent. Pack your gear,
Speaker 5: plan your roots, but also pack your humility. The wilderness
Speaker 5: is not a playground or a conquest to be achieved.
Speaker 5: It's a living ecosystem where predators still hunt, where ancient
Speaker 5: territorial boundaries still matter, and where some residents prefer to
Speaker 5: remain undiscovered. Stay safe out there, keep your eyes open,
Speaker 5: and remember if something seems to be watching you from
Speaker 5: the tree line, trust that instinct. It probably is. Until
Speaker 5: next time.
Speaker 6: They say you don't gotta go home, but you can't
Speaker 6: stay steps, steps.
Speaker 1: Stops, chart, this child, that chart.
Speaker 4: Everything came right back, bride back to Joy.
Speaker 1: For me Joy stay right there, you.
Speaker 4: Come in right away. Still step.
Speaker 1: Fasts do do do Talk about.
Speaker 7: Thesssssts us stas
Speaker 1: Used USS