Speaker 1: Some time ago, I left a comment saying that I
would write you about an experience I had sometime around
nineteen ninety seven in Memphis, Tennessee. You really must forgive
me for not writing as soon as I said I would.
But I started thinking about how unexciting and uncertain my
experience was, and I became hesitant to share it. Nevertheless,
what I'm about to write really happened. I warn you
it's not much of an experience, if it is one
at all. As a matter of fact, I didn't know
I was having an experience at the time, and I
wouldn't know today were it not for circumstances that later
came to my understanding. I was born and raised in
eastern Arkansas. My little town at the last hilly area
of Crowley's Ridge, where it ended in the Delta Plain
on the western banks of the Mississippi River. The closest
town to ours in Mississippi was a place called Loudlah.
I only mentioned this to you so that you know
that I'm also a son of the South, and I
grew up like you, I think, in the Mississippi River Delta. Yes, sir,
that's where I grew up. We're river rats ma'am. Later
in life, after I was married, I lived in Memphis, Tennessee.
My subdivision was called Oak Haven, which boasts many mature
stands of isolated forests all over, hence the name Oak Haven.
Sometime after my experience, I realized that these stands of
forest and underbrush extended due south of my home to
northwestern Mississippi without a break. Except for a few well
traveled roads that could easily be crossed at night without
anyone noticing. It's possible to travel as far as South Haven, Mississippi,
within the treeline of the woods that I mentioned. My
home was about five miles north of State Line Road,
the border between Tennis Sea in Mississippi. I had a
beautiful home that backed up to a large green park.
One hundred yards due east of my home was a
little creek that drained into a ten acre lake. One
of the aforementioned mature stands of forests ran alongside the creek,
intersected only by one lonely residential road. It bordered the
part of the park that people did not frequent, maybe
because of a regular tall grass that was ever present.
In the fear of snakes, the city kept this area
cut but only every couple of weeks, so the grass
would often be too tall for such pleasantrees as picnics
and things like that. Over the years, I spent many
an evening cooking out and having friends over. But one
particular night, I believe it was nineteen ninety seven, I
was home alone and standing out on my recently built
free standing deck. I was congratulating myself on the craftsman
ship and choice of location. Placed on a partial slope,
it was tucked into the pines and flanked by a
couple of big maples, but still afforded a spectacular view
of the river. It was just after dark in the
late summer, with a huge full moon looming over the
line of woods that grew along the creek. I was
standing completely still, watching the moon and thinking how glorious
this site was, when out of the corner of my
eye I caught movement. It looked like someone walking out
in the field. I took note of the fact that
he looked like a really tall basketball player with an
exceptionally wide shoulders, and that he was just casually walking
along my neighbour's chain link fence. He seemed to have
a spring in his step that made him bounce along
in a side to side motion. The fact that he
appeared to be wearing all black gave the impression of
him being no more than a silhouette in the moonlight.
He had a tall, thin, powerful looking physique, marred only
slightly by a bit of a beer belly. His path
took him right along my backyard fence, where I stood watching,
hidden from view through the low hanging maple leaves. He
must have sent someone watching him, because he suddenly stopped
and stood completely motionless for five seconds or so before
dropping straight down into the tall grass. I found this
behavior alarming, so much so that I turned and quickly
retreated across my yard to my back door. Once inside,
I locked the doors before cautiously peering through the windows.
I couldn't see anything out there now, but I was
troubled by what I had seen for the rest of
the night. A few days later, with that incident pushed
completely out of my mind, I had another in one
of my little get togethers. My wife worked second shifts,
so these were usually just guys hanging out and cooking stay.
That night was no exception. We had our meal and
we were just hanging out when we decided that the
citronella candles weren't doing their jobs and decided to go
inside with our beers. As we sat around talking, something
suddenly shook the whole house with a thunderous smack. I
had vaulted ceilings and judged the impact to be at
least twelve feet up. Furious that someone or something had
hit my home, I went outside to check it out.
Some of the others followed me out, but we could
find no evidence of anything that could have hit the house.
I thought maybe a goose had flown into it, but
that didn't really make sense. We spent the rest of
the evening passing theories around as to what it might
have been. None of them seemed to hold water. It
would be many years before I would learn that house
slapping is a common behavior of a bigfoot. I believe
I saw a bigfoot that night, and it upset him
that I wanted while he was unaware, I think he
slapped my house in retaliation. I also believe he was
drawn there by the many cookouts. I know it doesn't
sound like much, but it happened. I would prefer not
to have my name used, but the people who live
around there will know who I am through the description
of my house. Not long after this happened, I relocated
to Arizona for other reasons, still ignorant of what I
had seen and experienced. It wasn't until I began reading
and listening to shows like yours that I finally realized
I had had an encounter. Something happened to me that
has always haunted me. I've never told anyone except my
father and my best friend. Neither one of them believed me.
During the nineteen seventies and eighties, my dad was a
land developer in East Texas around Toledo ben and sam
Rayburn Reservoir. He would buy lakeside lots of land and
get a surveyor to break it down, and then he'd
put in roads in each cell the watts. He developed
several campgrounds and neighborhoods that way, and I grew up
in a small town in deep East Texas around the
Sabine and Anglina National Forests above the Big Thicket. Every
now and then Dad would go see the surveyor to
discuss the business, and sometimes he would take me with him.
I thought I would enjoy the ride, and the surveyor
had a son that I could play with. His name
was Tommy James and we called him TJ for short.
He was nine and I was eleven. He didn't go
to my school, but he was fun to play with
because he was a simple kind of country kid, and
we would shoot bb guns and we'd whittle sticks and
get dirty playing in the dirt pile with his talka trucks.
It was while we were playing in a dirt pile
one day when TJ slowly looked up at me and
he said, there's a Chewbacca man that lives down that
trail right there. He pointed to a thin trail in
the back left corner of his backyard. You want to
go see it, he asked. Chewbacca lives back there? I asked, yep,
he's a Chewbacca man. TJ assured me. I remember laughing
and saying, okay, let's go see Chewbacca man. We started
down the little path with me convinced that we were
playing make believe, and I was surprised how far TJ
was taking me. It seemed like we walked for a
long time before we came to a huge dead fall
across the trail, and it looked like a tree had
fallen down and taken a lot of trees with it.
There were empty crackerjack boxes with Little Debbie snackcake wrappers
strown on the ground in front of it. Now, I
guess this is where TJ came to eat a snacks.
TJ looked around and he said, well, this is it.
I'll call him. He let out along howl. I was
still convinced that this was just a game that we
were playing, so I didn't expect to see anything. I
figured this was his imagination in overdrive. But when he
let out another long howl, I began to hear the
sound of walking and cracking that was coming in our direction. TJ,
what is that, I asked, as the fog of make
believe was beginning to clear. Well, it's a Chewbacca, man,
he told me. I took a step back as TJ
faced the dead fall and and began to speak in
a coaxing tone. Come on, come on. He was beckoning
it like a little puppy. The walking sound stopped on
the other side of the tree, and I could hear
loud breathing like a horse. A horse, Yes, I thought
he's calling a horse. I took a huge breath and
I released it a deep sigh of relief. TJ began
to almost sing the word Chewbacca in a gentle voice.
He was calling it again. A few limbs shifted and
moved in the dead fall, and then I heard it
utter a single, deep but faint word. Oh. All of
my former relief slipped away. In this place was a
hard nott of fear and anxiety. That the thought of
whatever was on the other side of those trees that
was big enough to have a voice that deep. I
could almost feel its mass as it stood there, breathing
the air into its lungs. That must have been massive.
Come on, TJ sweetly beckoned again, Tommy, I whispered, let's
get out of here. At that second, the thing released
a loud sound, and it shook the world around me,
and it shot through me, and it rattled in my chest,
and it left me stunned in my tracks. My eyes
widened in fear, and my own lungs ceased to function.
TJ was still calling the thing. I felt hot and sick,
and beads of sweat broke out all over my body,
while my heart was jumping up into my throat. If
I could have made my legs work. I would have
run away. In my mind, this wasn't happening, This couldn't
be happening. But TJ wasn't afraid. Limbs and the dead
fall began to move and snap again, and I thought
the thing was coming over it or through it, and
big grunts of breath mingled with the sounds of limbs
slamming and cracking. I was still frozen and could only
stand there and listen to the thing raising hell a
few feet away. TJ turned to me and he said,
he doesn't like you. As he spoke, I saw arms
coming up over the dead fall. I didn't want to
see more. Tommy run, I screamed. Now, wait, it's okay,
he was calling to me. I had already taken off,
and I left TJ standing in the path with that
thing with the long arms and the deep growling voice
and the loud scream was chasing me. I could hear
it coming up the path behind me. It was exhaling
great puffs of air with intense force. I barely felt
the limbs slapping my face as I raced up the
narrow path. I had to get to my dad. Behind me.
That thing seemed to have left the trail altogether. All
around me, branches were snapping and trees were cracking. And
then it was in the woods next to me, and
from the sound of the brush, I could tell it
was running a wide circle, and I guess it was
about twenty five feet out. Glimpses of its enormous black
body with long arms swinging flashed through the leaves. It
was so big and unbelievable fast. It was pulling ahead
of me, but the trail was endless, and panic stricken
tears began to blur my vision when I realized it
was gonna cut me off, and ahead of me, I
could see into TJ's backyard. Daddy, I screamed, Daddy. And
then as I broke through the underbrush into the yard,
that thing came to a sudden violence stop, and everything
went silent. The thrashing of the limbs stopped, and the
sounds of its breathing stopped, and the sounds of those
impossibly fast footfalls stopped too. It had chased me all
the way back up the trail, and it almost caught me.
I ran into the office building where my dad and
the surveyor were talking, and TJ came running up behind me. Well,
I was out of breath and I was crying and whimpering.
As I began to tell my dad about the big
thing that was chasing me. TJ stood behind me, and
he never said anything. Well, our neighbor has goats to
get out all the time, the surveyor offered, I'll bet
one of those nannies got out and got after you. Well,
Dad could see that I was really scared, and he
laughed and he patted me on the head, and he
told me to go wait in the truck. Well, I
ran to the truck and I got in and I
locked all the doors. I watched TJ walk slowly over
to the truck, and I waited until he was standing
beside it before I had the nerve to roll down
the window. I told you there was a Chewbacca man,
he said, I saw it. I said, what was that thing?
He's the Boogeyman. He's a Chewbacca man, was TJ's only answer.
Dad came out to the truck and I rolled up
my window as he got in and we were pulling away,
and I looked back to see TJ walking toward the
back of the house. He turned around and gave me
one last look before disappear around the corner. Are you okay?
Dad asked, you got chased by a goat? Huh, No, Dad,
it was not a goat, I answered, and I told
him the whole story on the way home, but I
could tell that he didn't believe me. He thought maybe
a cow or a bullet chased me out of the woods.
Well months later, Dad asked me if I wanted to
go to the surveyor's house with him again, and I
gave him a solid no. Okay, I just thought i'd ask,
he said, holding up his hands and surrender. He knew
how I felt about that place. I never went back
there again. Many nights, I've laid in my bed and
I've thought about what happened to me that day. I
thought about TJ and all those wrappers around the trees.
I figured he must have been going down there and
feeding that thing. I guess he had kind of made
a friend of it. I've also thought about what have
happened if I hadn't run. Sometime after that incident, I
overheard my dad telling my mom that the surveyor had
taken his family and moved out of the state. A
neighbor down the road, said that they had moved back
to where his wife was from. Was Alabama or Mississippi.
He couldn't remember which. It's funny. Dad said that he
didn't tell me he was leaving. He just up and left.
Now I got him a lot of business. He didn't
even call to say goodbye. My father was disappointed. My
father died several years ago without us ever talking about
the incident again. But I think I know what made
them move without warning. TJ called it the Chewbacca Man.
The story happened somewhere in Mexico in the nineteen seventies.
It was told to me by my brother in law.
I've never spoken with his friend about it, but as
crazy as it is, I believe it's true. Since he
wouldn't like it if I revealed his name, I would
prefer that we all remain anonymous. My brother in law
and his best friend were down in Mexico deer hunting.
His friend hired some guides because they didn't know the area.
In the nineteen seventies, the drug cartel was all over
the place, so they were warned if they had to hide,
to do exactly as they were told. Understandably, they were
more than just a little nervous. They arrived where they
planned to camp near the opening of the cave. They
had their pack, animals, and supplies, and they were heavily armed,
both for hunting and for protection. The next morning, when
they went out to hunt, my brother in law was
struggling to deal with this fear of being arrested in Mexico,
so when the guides found them places to set up,
he insisted that he be close to his friend. That
first day, they hunted the whole day and saw a
couple of deer. His friend told him to calm down,
that it was only the first day. Calming down was
not easy for them because the guides did not come
back to get them. They had some beef, jerky and
some water with them and they set up the best
camp that they could, but it was a long night.
The next morning, before daylight, one of the guides found
them and told them that the other guides had left
with the animals. He didn't know if they'd be coming back.
At daybreak, the three headed out to try to find
their way to the vehicles. At some point, my brother
in law's friend was overcome by his fear and he panicked.
He ran off My brother in law tried, but there
was no stopping him. Now it was just my brother
in law and one guide. They managed to find where
they'd left the vehicles, but my brother in law couldn't
leave without his friend. The guide went back to look
for him, leaving my brother in law in the vehicle
to wait. They were parked close to the border, so
that was the only small comfort. My brother in law
waited for the rest of the day. The sun set
and he fell asleep while he was waiting. When he
woke up, he found himself surrounded by Mexican nationals, none
of whom spoke English. My brother in law didn't speak Spanish,
but somehow they managed to convey to him that he
needed to leave or he would die, so he left
with no other choice. My brother in law crossed the
border and confessed everything to the border patrol. They were
not happy with him, but at least now there would
be others looking for his friend. My brother in law
was sent to a town to wait for the news
of his friend. After three days, the border patrol still
hadn't found him, so they sent my brother in law
home and said they'd send news if they found him there. However,
they warned him that they didn't expect to find his
friend alive. At this point, my brother in law returned
to his Texas town to face his friend's way life
with the news. For two weeks he did his best
to keep her calm and try to prevent her from panicking.
And then the news came. His friend was found by
the highway patrol lying on a highway in Texas and
he was alive. My brother in law went to see
him in the hospital, but his friend wouldn't speak. He
was dazed and confused. Even after they got him home,
he wasn't talking. Physically, he was fine, he was just
in a deep state of shop. Weeks went by with
my brother in law making regular visits, and still he
wouldn't speak. Eventually he began to come around, and finally
he was able to tell this story. In his Panic,
he had gotten lost. He went down to the river
bottom to hide among the boulders at the base of
the cliffs. He was sure he was being hunted by
the cartel and that death was imminent. He happened on
a ca and he went inside to hide, and there
a big hairy man found him. This creature for the
lack of a better word, brought him raw meat and
berries to eat. He still had some jerky, so he
passed on the meat. There was a female who brought
him water as well, and it was days before he
felt strong enough to leave them. When the time came,
they were at the mouth of the cave, and he
did his best to communicate goodbye to them. Once he
was able to make them understand that he had to go,
the female took him to the river, where he filled
his water pouch. Again, he said goodbye. She didn't try
to stop him. He stuck to the river banks, knowing
he'd have to hide every now and then to keep
from being caught by the cartel. My brother in law
said it was weeks before he could get the whole
story out of him. No one talks about the time
his friend got lost trying to hunt deer in Mexico,
and when my brother in laws my friend first started
telling his story, he left out the part of the Bigfoot.
It was only when he had gone to a dear
lease in South Texas that his friend finally confessed the
whole story. Even then, my brother in law accused him
of lying. This guy has made a full recovery now,
but it was years before he could even go hunting again.
I've never spoken with him directly to confirm or deny
any of these details. This is only how my brother
in law told the story.