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