Speaker 1: My encounter took place in Spencer County, Indiana, in July
Speaker 1: of twenty ten. I was working as a city police
Speaker 1: officer at the time. It had recently moved in with
Speaker 1: a friend in the area. The house, set on several
Speaker 1: acres mostly forested. Spencer County is a spooky place. My
Speaker 1: friends can attest to that. I've had all manner of
Speaker 1: unexplainable weirdness happened to me up there. My friend had
Speaker 1: been called away on business out of town, so I
Speaker 1: was on my own for a few days. I had
Speaker 1: been living in my new place for about three weeks,
Speaker 1: and it was my day off. I'd been working third shift.
Speaker 1: I was up late trying to unpack the rest of
Speaker 1: my things and clean up the place a bit when
Speaker 1: I started getting an uneasy feeling of being watched. At first,
Speaker 1: I shrugged it off and I put my side arm
Speaker 1: on my hip and I continued working. A few hours later,
Speaker 1: a decent sized rock hit the front window. It didn't
Speaker 1: break the window, but I about jumped out of my skin.
Speaker 1: I retrieved my shotgun, stepped out onto the front porch,
Speaker 1: and I racked around in the chamber, figuring I was
Speaker 1: dealing with trespassers or methods. I saw him just inside
Speaker 1: the tree line, maybe forty yards away. It was dark out,
Speaker 1: but the porch light was bright enough to see the
Speaker 1: large silhouette crouching down. And then he stood up. Now
Speaker 1: I'm about five foot eight and the porch is about
Speaker 1: three feet off the ground, and from what I could see,
Speaker 1: we were close to eye to eye level. My fault was,
Speaker 1: what is this big dude doing way out here in
Speaker 1: the middle of nowhere in the wee hours of the night.
Speaker 1: And then it dawned on me all at once what
Speaker 1: I was looking at. I was a veteran cop and
Speaker 1: had been in many dangerous situations. At that point in
Speaker 1: my life, not much of anything could rattle me. I
Speaker 1: couldn't say that anymore. I stood there, wide eyed and frozen,
Speaker 1: with my shotgun cradled in both arms and across my
Speaker 1: chest as he and I regarded each other. The few
Speaker 1: seconds of our encounter seemed to last for hours. When
Speaker 1: he gave me a loud snort and then he retreated
Speaker 1: back into the woods. I could hear his departure as
Speaker 1: the limbs cracked. I think he was letting me know
Speaker 1: that he was leaving. Now I never once felt threatened.
Speaker 1: I thought to aim my weapon at him, but I'd
Speaker 1: decided against it. I think he was just curious, and
Speaker 1: I don't think he wished me any harm. I went
Speaker 1: back into the house and thought about what I had seen.
Speaker 1: I didn't sleep at all that night. At first light,
Speaker 1: I decided to drive to my station and get my
Speaker 1: high powered rifle from my patrol old car just in case.
Speaker 1: On my way there, I saw a friend of mine.
Speaker 1: He's a county deputy, and he was sitting at a
Speaker 1: local gas station. I stopped to say hi, and he
Speaker 1: started telling me about this night. It had been looking
Speaker 1: for a large man in a gilly suit prowling around
Speaker 1: my neck of the woods. Then he asked if I
Speaker 1: had seen anything. Well. I told him what I had seen,
Speaker 1: figuring he would tease me about it, but he didn't.
Speaker 1: Made a solemn face and he said, oh, it's just
Speaker 1: him again. He proceeded to tell me of the reports
Speaker 1: and incidents that he had been involved in, and that
Speaker 1: from time to time our mutual friend would come out
Speaker 1: and cause some mischief. Years later I started really trying
Speaker 1: to learn about them. One of your videos mentioned an
Speaker 1: encounter about four miles as the crow flies from where
Speaker 1: I had mine, and another channel talked about a sighting
Speaker 1: six miles away from me. I guess my friend has
Speaker 1: been making the rounds. In the nineteen sixties, we lived
Speaker 1: in the city of Pittsburgh on a hill that was
Speaker 1: undermined with old mine shafts. I was twelve years old
Speaker 1: and running from the woods nearby to go home and
Speaker 1: eat supper. You got into big trouble if you missed
Speaker 1: supper in my home. So I ran up the trail
Speaker 1: as fast as I could get there. I was running
Speaker 1: and I saw something move to my right, not that
Speaker 1: far off the trail. I stopped in my tracks when
Speaker 1: I saw it, and for a minute or two, I
Speaker 1: found myself playing a silly game with a seven foot
Speaker 1: tall brown and red haired creature. It was a bigfoot.
Speaker 1: I had never in my life seen anything like this.
Speaker 1: At that time, Frankenstein and the werewolf were the only
Speaker 1: scary things I knew about. He would slide behind a
Speaker 1: tree and look from one side and then too the other,
Speaker 1: peeking at me as I moved forward back to see
Speaker 1: him and watch what he was doing. At one point,
Speaker 1: I decided that I'd had enough and I ran like
Speaker 1: hell out of there. I never said a word to
Speaker 1: my mother and my father about it either. Only recently
Speaker 1: did I tell my wife of fifty four years. And
Speaker 1: then two short years ago, I was golfing at Whitewater
Speaker 1: Creek in Fayettville, Georgia. It was mid December and most
Speaker 1: of the leaves had fallen off the trees. Two golf
Speaker 1: carts pulled up to the number sixteen tea box, which
Speaker 1: was beside two ponds. We started getting out when my
Speaker 1: buddy next to me shouted, Hey, Dave, there's bigfoot. We
Speaker 1: looked across the pond into the woods, and sure enough
Speaker 1: we saw something massive and black walking through the trees
Speaker 1: not sixty feet from us. Well, I couldn't see all
Speaker 1: of it, but enough to know what we were looking at.
Speaker 1: My buddy and I turned the cart around and drove
Speaker 1: to the edge of the woods where the thing had walked.
Speaker 1: And when I pulled up to the edge of the trees,
Speaker 1: we saw the thing walking right toward us. When my
Speaker 1: buddy slapped my legs, shouting, let's get out of here.
Speaker 1: But I wasn't ready to go, and I shouted and
Speaker 1: I whistled at the thing, and then I watched him
Speaker 1: walk off and go back the way he came. The
Speaker 1: sun hit its back for a few seconds, and I
Speaker 1: could see it's jet black fur, and it's a massive
Speaker 1: arm and shoulder and part of its head. We watched
Speaker 1: it go over the little hill and out of sight
Speaker 1: toward a whitewater creek. And when my buddy and I
Speaker 1: got back to the others, we opened a beer and
Speaker 1: did not talk about what we had seen. And it
Speaker 1: wasn't until two years later that my friend spoke about
Speaker 1: it again. He said it looked like a big, black
Speaker 1: fifty five gallon oil drum walking on two legs during
Speaker 1: the summertime. The woods are so thick with leaves that
Speaker 1: you can't see five feet through the trees and bushes.
Speaker 1: But I'm sure it's still out there, though, and that
Speaker 1: we got lucky to see it when we did. I
Speaker 1: once met a young lady from an indigenous tribe in
Speaker 1: British Columbia. Her grandmother lived in Victoria and had a
Speaker 1: big house with a deck and a fence din yard.
Speaker 1: On the other side of the fence was forest land,
Speaker 1: and Bigfoot was well known to be all around that area.
Speaker 1: She used to babysit her nieces and nephews at her
Speaker 1: grandma's house. While she was there, she could hear the
Speaker 1: bigfoots wood claps and chatter and screams. She could see
Speaker 1: them interacting with each other inside the trees. Whenever Bigfoot
Speaker 1: was around, she and the children were not allowed outside
Speaker 1: because they were not allowed to disturb them. She was
Speaker 1: raised to believe that bigfoot are keepers of the land.
Speaker 1: She was taught that if she didn't bother them, the
Speaker 1: Bigfoot families would not bother her. Whenever the creatures got
Speaker 1: spooked by a nearby human, the mama Bigfoot would tell
Speaker 1: the little ones to hide while she and the others
Speaker 1: saddled up next to the trees and blended into the surroundings.
Speaker 1: One time, she was watching a group of bigfoots on
Speaker 1: the other side of the fence when something in the
Speaker 1: woods alerted them. She watched them quickly hide among the trees,
Speaker 1: each of them planted so perfectly that it was hard
Speaker 1: to tell they were even there. That conversation has stayed
Speaker 1: with me all these years. I found it fascinating how
Speaker 1: calm and comfortable she was talking about them, about the
Speaker 1: forest neighbors she coexisted with so peacefully, She said, she
Speaker 1: wasn't allowed to tell anyone where her grandma lived, otherwise
Speaker 1: people would come out to bother them. Thank you for
Speaker 1: all you do. I love and appreciate your channel sign Marcy.
Speaker 1: I am a lifelong resident of Ross County, Ohio. My
Speaker 1: first sighting of a bigfoot came in nineteen ninety nine
Speaker 1: when I I was eleven years old. My family and
Speaker 1: I were in the car returning home from Illinois after
Speaker 1: visiting my aunt and uncle for Thanksgiving. I remember staring
Speaker 1: out of my window and looking into the trees when
Speaker 1: I saw something furry and tall and black walking through
Speaker 1: the thicket. I probably saw it for six seconds, but
Speaker 1: it felt like an eternity, watching this thing ambling along
Speaker 1: like it didn't have a care in the whole world.
Speaker 1: I blurted out, I saw a bigfoot, just like Harry
Speaker 1: and the Hendersons. I saw one right now in the woods. Well,
Speaker 1: my mom gave me a weird look, and my sister
Speaker 1: did somewhat the same, and she called me a dork.
Speaker 1: Dad said something like, that's malarkey, Fred, bigfoot isn't real. Well,
Speaker 1: I protested, and I doubled down, but my dad said
Speaker 1: it was probably a local guy wearing a big coat
Speaker 1: out there, and then I let it go since I
Speaker 1: knew none of them believed me anyway. And then we
Speaker 1: come to April of twenty twenty one. My parents own
Speaker 1: a few acres of land not far from the family house.
Speaker 1: In the middle of that land is a small cabin
Speaker 1: surrounded by trees. My family members have used a cabin
Speaker 1: over the years for various things like parties and celebrations,
Speaker 1: and as a place to hunt for deer during the season.
Speaker 1: One time, on a visit to the cabin, I was
Speaker 1: in the process of unloading my jeep when I saw
Speaker 1: something standing just fifteen feet from me. It was closely
Speaker 1: observing what I was doing. It had reddish fur four
Speaker 1: inches long. I think it was a juvenile bigfoot. It
Speaker 1: cautiously approached me until we were ten feet apart. It
Speaker 1: was only five feet tall, and it smelled like a
Speaker 1: dog that had never had a bath in its life.
Speaker 1: When it was closer, I could see it wasn't a
Speaker 1: juvenile bigfoot after all. It had very human looking like features,
Speaker 1: not like that of a gorilla or a primate. His
Speaker 1: nose was a lot like mine, albeit a little broader,
Speaker 1: and his lips were like a person's had a short
Speaker 1: neck and long arms, and its hands hung down past
Speaker 1: its knees. While diminutive in stature, it was wide and
Speaker 1: muscular everywhere nonetheless, and then I saw that it was
Speaker 1: missing an ear looked like it had been torn off.
Speaker 1: He had a large scar that started under his right eye,
Speaker 1: and it ran down over his lips. The scar continued
Speaker 1: downward and then hooked right, giving in an l shape.
Speaker 1: Something or someone had clearly harmed this creature. My final
Speaker 1: thought was that he was a bigfoot with some type
Speaker 1: of dwarfism. No, I wasn't scared. I didn't feel threatened
Speaker 1: or intimidated by him. I think he was just curious
Speaker 1: and wanted to investigate. He stood there and he tilted
Speaker 1: his head sideways at me, and he gave me a big, dopey,
Speaker 1: goofy smile, grinning at me like we were friends and
Speaker 1: he'd known me his entire life. He turned around and
Speaker 1: walked back toward the forest. Then he smiled at me
Speaker 1: one more time, and he went into the woods, and
Speaker 1: then he was out of sight. The next morning, I
Speaker 1: had just sat down for my breakfast when I noticed
Speaker 1: he had returned. He was looking in the window and
Speaker 1: smiling that dope. He smile at me once again. He
Speaker 1: looked at my breakfast, and he licked his lips like
Speaker 1: he was hungry. So I took my plate carefully and
Speaker 1: opened the front door and walked outside. I returned his
Speaker 1: smile and placed the food on the porch and took
Speaker 1: two steps back. He looked down at the food and
Speaker 1: back up at me like he was saying, is this
Speaker 1: for me? I maintained my smile as he picked up
Speaker 1: the plate and turned around and went back into the woods,
Speaker 1: just like the day before. He smiled at me again,
Speaker 1: and then he disappeared. Later that evening, I went out
Speaker 1: to the jeep and I placed some fruit and cheese
Speaker 1: and chocolate on the hood. When I peeeded out almost
Speaker 1: an hour later, all of that was gone. The next day,
Speaker 1: he didn't show up. When I was having breakfast, I
Speaker 1: ate and I went outside, and then I noticed some
Speaker 1: items on the hood of my jeep where I'd left
Speaker 1: the food for him. There were three polished blue rocks,
Speaker 1: a large flint arrowhead, a Susan B Anthony dollar coin,
Speaker 1: a torn Canadian twenty dollar bill with bike marks on it,
Speaker 1: and a pine cone in the head and arm of
Speaker 1: a Barbie Doll. The night before I went back home,
Speaker 1: I saw two triangle shaped ufo silently floating near the cabin.
Speaker 1: They moved up around each other as though they were dancing,
Speaker 1: and when I took a couple of steps off the
Speaker 1: porch for a better view, they stopped in midair as
Speaker 1: though they had noticed me. After a few seconds, they
Speaker 1: shot straight up into the sky and they were gone.
Speaker 1: I don't know if they had anything to do with Bigfoot,
Speaker 1: but it felt like more than just a incidents. Now.
Speaker 1: I never did see that Bigfoot again, but my wish
Speaker 1: is that wherever he is, he's well as a man
Speaker 1: coming from a family of non believers. Thank you for
Speaker 1: letting me get this off of my chest, he signs Fred.
Speaker 1: This is a story about an evil spirit. Let's see
Speaker 1: what the writer has to say. I was attending the
Speaker 1: University of Utah in Salt Lake City, and on weekends,
Speaker 1: when I wasn't working or loaded with homework, I would
Speaker 1: head up into the Wasatch Mountains to fish, camp or
Speaker 1: hike around the many lakes. The skies at night were
Speaker 1: absolutely amazing, and I would stargaze for hour, watching the
Speaker 1: comments and finding constellations. I love seeing the wildlife roaming,
Speaker 1: and I never got tired of being surrounded by the
Speaker 1: peace and solitude of nature. I love the evergreens and
Speaker 1: the aspen trees, and the colors of the evening and
Speaker 1: dawn that seemed to be painted in the sky. It's
Speaker 1: a gorgeous country up there. On one summer night, I
Speaker 1: went fishing with one of my buddies. We had a
Speaker 1: great spot on the river to catch rainbow trout, which
Speaker 1: always tastes amazing over a campfire. After dinner, we went
Speaker 1: to an overlook to watch the animals that would pass
Speaker 1: by lower in the valley. We didn't need flashlights. The
Speaker 1: moon was full and so bright that we could see
Speaker 1: our shadows well. We were sitting on the front of
Speaker 1: his car and talking about school and work and fish
Speaker 1: and life in general. After about an hour, I felt
Speaker 1: the creepy sensation that something was watching me. I knew
Speaker 1: we were alone out there, so I thought it might
Speaker 1: be in my head, and I said nothing to my friend.
Speaker 1: But then a few minutes later the feeling became gradually
Speaker 1: more intense and dark. I felt the vibe that can
Speaker 1: only be described as evil, angry, mocking, pure evil. Whoever
Speaker 1: or whatever it was I could feel it standing just
Speaker 1: away from the back of the car. There's something really
Speaker 1: scary going on. Someone's behind us, I quietly told my friend.
Speaker 1: They just looked at me and shrugged. Oh, yeah, I know,
Speaker 1: I see him a lot. If I hadn't been in
Speaker 1: a state of near panic at that point and had
Speaker 1: been able to think straight, I would have tossed my
Speaker 1: friend down the mountain and left without him what I
Speaker 1: asked him in pure confusion and panic. You know we
Speaker 1: need to go now, I said. I slid off the
Speaker 1: hood of the car and got inside, careful not to
Speaker 1: look up and back toward the trunk. But my friend
Speaker 1: took us time getting in, started the car, and slowly
Speaker 1: drove off. All the while I was next to him
Speaker 1: shouting for him to hit the gas and get us
Speaker 1: the hell out of there. My heart was racing, my
Speaker 1: hands were shaking, and my face felt hot. It was
Speaker 1: sheer terror. I had never experienced fear like this before,
Speaker 1: and I'm happy to if not have felt it. Since
Speaker 1: the further away we drove the calmer, I felt whatever
Speaker 1: it was it had stayed behind. Once I calmed down
Speaker 1: a bit, I asked my friend how long he had
Speaker 1: known that evil spirit had been there, and why it
Speaker 1: was there, and why in the world didn't we leave.
Speaker 1: As soon as he knew what was going on, he
Speaker 1: told me that he was used to it, and I
Speaker 1: actually described what the spirit looked like. When I got home,
Speaker 1: I prayed like there was no tomorrow, that this thing
Speaker 1: would stay away from me. I eventually distanced myself from
Speaker 1: my friend after he told me about numerous dark experience
Speaker 1: he had had and that he had no intention of
Speaker 1: ridding himself of the sources of evil. There's most definitely
Speaker 1: good versus evil, and light versus dark in this world
Speaker 1: that we don't usually see, but if we're sensitive enough,
Speaker 1: we can. I certainly feel it. I was never into
Speaker 1: the occult or Ouiji boards or anything like that. I
Speaker 1: never dabbled in activity seeking out the darkness because I
Speaker 1: didn't want to find it. Now that I'm married and
Speaker 1: I have kids, I warned my family of the dangers
Speaker 1: that are lightly hidden there, just beyond our perception. Although
Speaker 1: this happened to me many years ago, Unfortunately, I'll never
Speaker 1: forget a second of the encounter or the feelings that
Speaker 1: came with it. Okay, I'm going to bring up an
Speaker 1: archive story, just one for this podcast, But if you're
Speaker 1: skipping these archived stories, I would encourage you to listen
Speaker 1: to this one to get a little taste of how
Speaker 1: good these stories are that I was doing five or
Speaker 1: six years ago. They're just as good as the stories
Speaker 1: I do now. But some of them had a particular
Speaker 1: twist or a bit of humor in them, or something
Speaker 1: unusual that you don't hear much, you know, in these
Speaker 1: creature type circles. But I think you'll enjoy this archive
Speaker 1: if you'll just listen in. I think it's about fifteen
Speaker 1: sixteen minutes long, but it's the way if you've heard
Speaker 1: it before, it's probably worth listening again, So I hope
Speaker 1: you enjoy it. So here's an archived story. I did
Speaker 1: it in a podcast five years ago. This encounter took
Speaker 1: place in Maryland back in the summer of nineteen sixty two.
Speaker 1: The knowledge of a bigfoot creature was not common, and
Speaker 1: I never knew of their existence. Then this one special,
Speaker 1: eventful day, My interaction with a strange creature was forever
Speaker 1: embedded deeply within my memories. It was not until years
Speaker 1: later that I learned exactly what it was that I
Speaker 1: had seen. Before getting into the details, of my encounter.
Speaker 1: I want to give you a better picture of the
Speaker 1: environment as it was back in nineteen sixty two. If
Speaker 1: you walk to the east, you're an end of the
Speaker 1: road that I lived on, and made a left, you
Speaker 1: would be on a road going north that would dead
Speaker 1: end too the woods, and continued north into the woods
Speaker 1: to a trail the woods was about a mile wide
Speaker 1: north and south and many miles long east and west.
Speaker 1: By following the river, you would be able to enter
Speaker 1: the Pacapsco Valley State Park completely indiscreet. Guys, I'm sorry
Speaker 1: about my pronunciation. The United States has chosen some of
Speaker 1: the weirdest names to give places, but they're probably good names.
Speaker 1: I just can't pronounce them, and you just got to
Speaker 1: deal with that. Proceeding down the trail about a half
Speaker 1: a mile into the woods, you had three choices. If
Speaker 1: you went to the right, you would run into a
Speaker 1: lake or swamp combo that was completely overrun by nature,
Speaker 1: making it difficult for most people to venture around the perimeter.
Speaker 1: My friends and I were probably the only teens that
Speaker 1: did this occasionally. It was worth the thrashing that we
Speaker 1: would have to endure by the weeds and thorns because
Speaker 1: you always ran into many animals, birds, reptiles, and other wildlife. Well,
Speaker 1: now back to the trail. My encounter took place in
Speaker 1: the early morning during the month of June in nineteen
Speaker 1: sixty two and I was twelve and a half years old.
Speaker 1: My closest friend and I would terrorize everything in the
Speaker 1: swamp and woods every day of our summer vacation and
Speaker 1: after school hours when it was in season. We could
Speaker 1: not get enough of it. We had become very proficient
Speaker 1: with our air rifles, able to hit dragonflies right out
Speaker 1: of the air while flying. This one particular morning in June,
Speaker 1: as I went to get my friend for our daily ritual,
Speaker 1: he sadly said in protest that he had to go
Speaker 1: somewhere with his mother that day. I did not let
Speaker 1: that stop me, however, and to make him feel even worse,
Speaker 1: I reassured him that I was still going. I knew
Speaker 1: the sight of just watching me walk off into the
Speaker 1: woods while he could not would really haunt him through
Speaker 1: the day with his mother. Well a smile on my face.
Speaker 1: I went to the end of our road, made the
Speaker 1: left and entered the woods. After proceeding past the dead end.
Speaker 1: When I got to the split, I looked right and left,
Speaker 1: deciding which way needed me the most. The swimming pond
Speaker 1: wasn't any fun for the horror that I was about
Speaker 1: to unleash on the swamp inhabitants, so I went to
Speaker 1: the left. I climbed up the embankment, across the flat area,
Speaker 1: and down the other side to the swamp. I stood
Speaker 1: there several minutes at the edge of the swamp, but
Speaker 1: then I realized that something immediately seemed different. Surprisingly, I
Speaker 1: didn't see or hear any wildlife or any of the
Speaker 1: usual chatter of the birds. The more I paid attention
Speaker 1: to the silence, the more it raised my curiosity, and
Speaker 1: then I suddenly had the strongest feeling that I was
Speaker 1: being watched. I can't explain it, but it was something
Speaker 1: that made me feel very uneasy. I started looking around
Speaker 1: into the woods, but I didn't see anything. It was
Speaker 1: not until I turned around one hundred and eighty degrees
Speaker 1: with my back to the swamp and looked at the
Speaker 1: embankment that I had just descended. There, about forty yards
Speaker 1: away and hugging a good sized tree from behind, was
Speaker 1: this huge, hairy creature standing on two legs. Its arms
Speaker 1: were around the tree and It was facing me, leaning
Speaker 1: out to its left side from its midsection, keeping its
Speaker 1: lower body behind the tree, just peering around and watching me.
Speaker 1: It was not doing a good job of hiding, because
Speaker 1: it was much wider than the sixteen inch wide tree,
Speaker 1: and from my point of view, there was about a
Speaker 1: foot of exposed chest and shoulder on its left side,
Speaker 1: and maybe two feet of its mass on the exposed
Speaker 1: right side, where its head was. I was immediately taking
Speaker 1: all of this in, realizing it was much taller than
Speaker 1: any man I had ever seen, and unbelievably huge and muscular.
Speaker 1: The body was covered with long, brownish colored hair, and
Speaker 1: only part of the upper chest and parts of the
Speaker 1: face were hairless. The head was big, and I thought
Speaker 1: to myself that the top of its large head looked
Speaker 1: like the end of a football. We stared at each
Speaker 1: other for what seemed like an eternity, and then, for
Speaker 1: whatever brilliant reasoning on my part, in an attempt to
Speaker 1: scare it away, I raised my Sheridan Blue Streak air rifle,
Speaker 1: which was pumped to the mix. I shot and hit
Speaker 1: the creature in the most exposed part of its chest,
Speaker 1: and to my amazement, it didn't even flinch. Not a
Speaker 1: good idea, I thought, But I knew that it had
Speaker 1: to hurt because I have to say that my Sheridan
Speaker 1: was one of, if not the most powerful air rifle
Speaker 1: available during that time, and it was able to pierce
Speaker 1: a metal milk can. If you've ever shot a BB
Speaker 1: or pellet rifle in the sunlight, you can sometimes see
Speaker 1: the sun reflecting on the projectile as it's being propelled
Speaker 1: to the target. This is what happened that day. I
Speaker 1: could see the pellet all the way until it hit
Speaker 1: the creature. Now, if once wasn't enough. After seeing my
Speaker 1: shot had no effect on this creature me and all
Speaker 1: my infinite teen knowledge that I could muster, I decided
Speaker 1: to shoot it again, and so I did. I saw
Speaker 1: the twenty caliber pellet hit in just about the same
Speaker 1: spot on its exposed chest. When I saw that this
Speaker 1: shot had no effect either, my immediate thought was why
Speaker 1: the heck did I just do that? Then, to show
Speaker 1: me that I was having the right thought, the creature
Speaker 1: stepped out from behind the tree, showing me just how
Speaker 1: massive he was, and also to imply that didn't hurt
Speaker 1: a bit. Boy. I now say descriptively he because when
Speaker 1: he stepped from behind the tree. My golf ball sized
Speaker 1: eyes dropped from his head and chest, and realized that
Speaker 1: it was definitely a male. I could not look away
Speaker 1: or believe what I was seeing. Was he offering me
Speaker 1: a new target. I quickly dismissed this thought because up
Speaker 1: to now he was not aggressive, and I knew that
Speaker 1: if I took that third shot at his newly revealed
Speaker 1: lower region, that this would end very badly for me.
Speaker 1: And I can see this kid going should I shoot
Speaker 1: it or should I not? That was all that I needed,
Speaker 1: because then I realized that I needed a good new
Speaker 1: plan fast. My first plan had failed of trying to
Speaker 1: get this thing to run away so I could get
Speaker 1: out of there by my same trail home that I
Speaker 1: had come in on. To make matters even worse, I
Speaker 1: think I only had succeeded in pissing this huge creature off,
Speaker 1: and just to be sure that I had accomplished that,
Speaker 1: and to be sure it was absolutely pissed off, I
Speaker 1: had shot it that second time, I avoided taking that
Speaker 1: tempting third shot, and my new plan was very simple.
Speaker 1: Run like hell. I had only one other option as
Speaker 1: an avenue of escape, and that was to go into
Speaker 1: the woods to the north towards the swimming lake and
Speaker 1: get to that housing community on the other side. It
Speaker 1: was not a decision that I wanted to make, but
Speaker 1: under the circumstances with the doubly shot pissed off big
Speaker 1: hairy creature, I know what they say about running from
Speaker 1: an animal and being chased as prey. Despite this, I
Speaker 1: was out of option, so I immediately ran and lit
Speaker 1: up that trail and probably amazed that creature so much
Speaker 1: that if it was capable of thought, it was probably
Speaker 1: thinking I never knew that could move that fast. I
Speaker 1: probably resembled the cartoon character the road Runner, burning a
Speaker 1: trail out of there. I made that trip in record time,
Speaker 1: even though it dumped me out miles away from home.
Speaker 1: I was happy, just happy to again see people, and
Speaker 1: the fact that the creature did not chase me or
Speaker 1: retaliate for me giving it such a whipping. It probably
Speaker 1: just dismissed everything as it walked casually away and thought
Speaker 1: what a stupid kid, and just decided to just leave
Speaker 1: me alone, and probably shaking its head at our encounter
Speaker 1: as it departed, happy to have its own story to
Speaker 1: tell to its own family. But this story does not endhere.
Speaker 1: When I safely got back home, I began rounding up
Speaker 1: some friends, and after several hours of convincing them that
Speaker 1: I was not crazy, six fearless or stupid teenage warriors
Speaker 1: went back to the woods equipped with air guns and
Speaker 1: baseball bats. Our scouring the woods by the swamp did
Speaker 1: not reveal the creature, and I was not disappointed because
Speaker 1: I was afraid it would still be hacked off at me,
Speaker 1: remembering that I was the one that shot it. During
Speaker 1: our search, we did find an obvious bedding area that
Speaker 1: was made from soft pine branches carefully arranged and they
Speaker 1: were completely mashed down. The location of this bed was
Speaker 1: at the top of an embankment, just off the trail
Speaker 1: that I had walked on to get to the swamp
Speaker 1: that morning. I think I had walked right past it.
Speaker 1: The creature may have been hiding, laying there sleeping and
Speaker 1: seeing me. It was probably hiding and staying out of view.
Speaker 1: I don't know where it was and where it came
Speaker 1: from into the woods that morning, but the bed was
Speaker 1: in perfect strategic location to see the trails in the
Speaker 1: surrounding area. I've since moved to another state, but during
Speaker 1: a trip back to Maryland. In twenty fifteen, I revisited
Speaker 1: that area. I parked my car where the woods once were,
Speaker 1: now a new subdivised housing parking lot, which was built
Speaker 1: right next to that swamp and on top of the
Speaker 1: now filled in swimming lake which gave way to this project.
Speaker 1: I had a tear in my eyes. I walked over
Speaker 1: to what was left of the swamp where my encounter
Speaker 1: took place and which had occupied so much of my
Speaker 1: time as a typical young boy growing up. Only a small,
Speaker 1: defiant and disrespected area of the swamp still remained, and
Speaker 1: only a hint of what it once was. It was
Speaker 1: now home to litter and discarded items unwanted by the
Speaker 1: housing community. I was completely shocked that with the addition
Speaker 1: of the new roads and all the lakes that had
Speaker 1: been filled in and built with this housing project's woods cut,
Speaker 1: and the erection of two churches, three schools, and a
Speaker 1: library on that property, that this small area was still
Speaker 1: even there. Amazingly, that the exact spot where I had
Speaker 1: stood at the edge of the swamp that eventful day
Speaker 1: had survived for whatever reason, despite all the human encroachment
Speaker 1: and development. I walked over to the remaining swamp and
Speaker 1: I stood in the exact spot at the edge of
Speaker 1: the swamp where I stood in nineteen sixty two, and
Speaker 1: then I began turning the one hundred and eighty degrees.
Speaker 1: Not knowing what to expect or what I would see,
Speaker 1: I completed the turn the same as I had done
Speaker 1: that special day, and to my surprise, standing on that
Speaker 1: hill there like a monument, was the same tree, but
Speaker 1: this time it was standing alone. As I looked at
Speaker 1: the tree, I got a cold chill and noticed that
Speaker 1: it was now a little wider around its midsection. But
Speaker 1: then again, so am I. You can use my story
Speaker 1: and my name. I have nothing to hide. I have
Speaker 1: remained an active hunter throughout my life and spent many
Speaker 1: many hours in the woods, gaining much respect for the
Speaker 1: animal and nature. Regrettably, I never saw anything like that again.
Speaker 1: Though every day I regret shooting that bigfoot and wish
Speaker 1: that I could have just thrown it an apple from
Speaker 1: my lunch bag instead, I respect the fact that this
Speaker 1: creature remained calm and did not retaliate for my poor decisions,
Speaker 1: and thank God that I did not take that third shot.
Speaker 1: Thank you for listening to this podcast and listening this far.
Speaker 1: I really appreciate you. Just a reminder. I'm going to
Speaker 1: be at the Smoky Mountain Bigfoot Conference in late July.
Speaker 1: I need to look up the date and put it
Speaker 1: in my calendar. I just hadn't had a minute to
Speaker 1: do it yet. And we're supposed to have stuff to
Speaker 1: sell there, and I don't have anything to sell. I
Speaker 1: think I've got about three weeks to order something and
Speaker 1: get it in so I can have stuff to sell
Speaker 1: at my booth. And I hate I just hate that stuff.
Speaker 1: I don't know. I'm a I'm not a gadget T
Speaker 1: shirt kind of salesperson. I don't I don't know. I
Speaker 1: just don't like all that stuff. I don't want to
Speaker 1: sell you anything. But I'm supposed to have something there
Speaker 1: to sell, so I'm trying to find some T shirts.
Speaker 1: Problem with T shirts is you have to get every
Speaker 1: conceivable size, from kids to women to men or real
Speaker 1: big men to real big women, and you have to
Speaker 1: buy so much stuff that it actually you don't sell
Speaker 1: at all, and it costs you money. I'm going to
Speaker 1: do it. I'm going to bring something to sell you.
Speaker 1: I won't make any money off of it anyway. All
Speaker 1: that to say, I'm going to be there, and I
Speaker 1: think I'm hosting a section of the conference where people
Speaker 1: actually get up and tell their stories. I need to
Speaker 1: contact the organizers of the event ask them exactly what
Speaker 1: I'm supposed to do, because I don't know. I don't
Speaker 1: do this kind of stuff. They asked me to do,
Speaker 1: it said, they said, they pay for my hotel room,
Speaker 1: which is the only thing that clicked me over into
Speaker 1: doing it, because every time I go to these conferences
Speaker 1: it cost me a fortune because I have to buy
Speaker 1: all this junk to sell, and I don't sell. I
Speaker 1: don't sell half of it. Anyway. I know I'm kind
Speaker 1: of sound like a Debbie Downer, but I don't know.
Speaker 1: I just don't like losing money, you know, That's all
Speaker 1: it is. But maybe this will work out. Heck, the
Speaker 1: hotels in that area are like three hundred and fifty
Speaker 1: bucks a night. How many T shirts do you have
Speaker 1: to sell just to pay for that? Plus all your gas,
Speaker 1: time away from work, et cetera, et cetera. But I
Speaker 1: will enjoy being there, will be I think my son's
Speaker 1: coming with me. We're gonna sit there together, and hopefully
Speaker 1: we'll get to see some people we've seen before. And
Speaker 1: maybe meet some new people. Yeah. Now I'm supposed to
Speaker 1: do a video to send to the organizers. I haven't
Speaker 1: done that yet. I'll probably do that today and send
Speaker 1: it to them. Anyway, I'll be at the Smoky Mountain
Speaker 1: Bickford Conference in Gatlinburg. I want to say, is July
Speaker 1: the twenty whatever, the last Saturday in July is. It's
Speaker 1: a one day deal, and so if you're going, you
Speaker 1: might want to get up if you want to. You know,
Speaker 1: if you don't live near there, you're going. It's a
Speaker 1: pretty good conference. I think they have some great speakers.
Speaker 1: There's all kinds of booths there where people are selling stuff,
Speaker 1: books and little gadgets and stuff like that. So when
Speaker 1: you come by my booth, I'll be standing there with
Speaker 1: some little chipyt shirts and not a very extravagant booth,
Speaker 1: but I'll be there. I'd love to see you and
Speaker 1: say hi. So y'all come out if you can. I
Speaker 1: don't know how much it costs. I don't know what
Speaker 1: day it's on, but just look up, do a Google
Speaker 1: search or some kind of search on Smoky Mountain Bigfoot Conference, Gatlinburg, Tennessee.
Speaker 1: It'll pop right up there at the top. All right,
Speaker 1: thanks again for listening to the podcast, and we'll see
Speaker 1: you guys on the next one. Thanks