Speaker 1: My name is Bill, and the stories I'm going to
relate can be considered a twofer. One is a UFO
story and the other is well, I don't know what
to call it. I have allowed myself to think it
was a screech owl or a bobcat, but my best
instinct says that it was something else, maybe a bigfoot.
We owned property in southwest Arkansas that has been in
the family since the eighteen fifties. It was farmed until
my grandfather retired around nineteen sixty eight. After his death
in nineteen seventy two, my grandmother moved into town to
be near her children, but the farmhouse and the acreage
remained intact in the family. Half of the total acreage
is planted with pine trees, thanks to the USDA incentives
offered at the time. However, as the property is located
along the Gulf Coastal Plain, which marked the edge of
the Gulf Coast in prehistoric times, the sandy lone quality
of the soil is unfit to grow anything but cedar trees.
In fact, for many years, families from our area harvested
their Christmas trees from our property. Now I say all
this because I spent much of my time growing up
on this land, and I know it well. Some years ago,
I had decided to camp in this cedar covered area
over several weeks to determine the feasibility of building an
off dred cabin. The site was way off the main
road and way out of sight. This event occurred on
the first night that I camped there. It was in
April of two thousand and sixteen. Sometime after three am.
I woke for no apparent reason, and I sat up
in my cot. I looked around the tent, and I
saw that everything was in order, and then I heard
four heavy wax or thuds on the ground very near
the Imagine the sound if you hit the earth with
a baseball bat as hard as you could, only it
was much louder than that. Next there came a scream
unlike anything I've ever heard. Not only was it so
loud that it made my ear drums distort, but it
generated an immediate fear in me that I can only
describe as primal. It wasn't like I felt like I
was in danger, but rather the scream produced an authentic
fear that I have never known. I imagined a banshee mask.
I made in the third grade during a study of
myths and legends, The phrase she screamed like a banshee
came to mind. Had I heard a banshee? Immediately after?
I heard what could only be described as bipedal steps
running away from the ridge, and in an effort to
rationalize it all, I assumed it was a screech owl
that produced the scream, and the flappings of its large
wingspan was what produced the sound of rapid footsteps. But
that explanation provides an no rationale for what was thumping
the ground. Now, bobcats can scream, for sure, but that
doesn't fit with the other things I heard. I have
come to terms with the fact that whatever I experienced
that night was meant to inform me that I wasn't
welcome there. Now I understand territorial mentality, but that's my
family's land, so if I decide to build there, we'll
have to learn to coexist with whatever that thing is.
I know I can gladly go the rest of my
life without having to hear that scream again. Though. Next
is UFO related, and it happened around the year two
thousand on this same property. Like many families who share
land out in the sticks. We would often gather over
a weekend of fish and cook out and mow grass,
or just sit around a bonfire and hang out. The
farmhouse could get a little when bedtime rolled around, so
my crew would pitch a large tent in the back pasture.
On this night, I was snoozing inside the tent with
my middle school daughter when we both awoke to a
fairly loud sound. It was vaguely mechanical, like a turbocharger
on a semi pulling a load up hill, but big
rigs don't travel on our highway. Feeling a heavy drowsiness,
I went back to sleep, but when I woke again,
the sound was still there. My daughter was standing at
the door of the tent and she said, Dad, you
need to come see this. But I couldn't rouse myself
from my cozy dream state. You fathers who have daughters
will understand this. As a dad, there's absolutely nothing you
won't do for your daughter. On reflection, this should have
been my first indicator that something was going on. Why
did I not get up out of that sleeping bag
and go look at what my daughter wanted me to see?
It almost felt like the twilight sensation during an anesthesia procedure,
just before the doctor tells you to count backwards from
one hundred. When I woke the next morning, my daughter
was safely tucked inside her sleeping bag. All was well
with the world. But later that day she said, Dad,
you really should have seen that thing over the pond
last night. Well what did you see? I asked her.
My daughter is very observational and painted a vivid picture
of what drew her attention while I was dead to
the world. The sound we heard was coming from this
thing that was really moving slowly over our pond at
about treetop level. She said. I couldn't really make out
the shape of it, but it had two big red
round lights at the back of it. It moved over
the pond and kept going toward the north over the highway.
As a point of reference, the pine is fifty yards
from the farmhouse and where we were sleeping that night.
Wondered if that sound we heard had the hypnotic effect
of neutralizing me, Yet it didn't seem to affect my
daughter in the same way. I've heard of abduction stories,
but she had no recollection of anything other than watching
the craft ease its way to the north. She remembers
getting back in her sleeping bag and dozing off, but
no one in the house heard or saw anything unusual. Well,
those are my stories, and they're probably too long to use,
but I feel better for having written them down while
the details are still fresh in my mind. And I
think it's important to share our experiences in a safe environment.
It's not only therapeutic, but it builds a community that
we all desperately need during these strange times. I live
in the mid South, in a suburban neighborhood close to
metropolitan Memphis. I went to school in Oxford, Mississippi at
ol Miss and I married a Mississippi girl I met
on campus. Life has been generous to us over the years.
We are now in our seventies and we both have
good health. We raised a family and all of our
children have done well, and we are fortunate to have
a lot of grandchildren who visit often. But there was
one incident that changed our lives forever. Neither my wife
nor myself have ever told this to anyone before I die,
and the story is lost forever. It needs to be told.
Every word I'm about to write is true. My wife
and I graduated in the spring of nineteen sixty five
and were married soon after. I landed a job back
in my hometown of Memphis, and we rented a small
duplex in the Berclaire area. I was making a decent living,
my wife was making new friends in her new city.
Things were great, and the sky was the limit as
far as we could see. By nineteen sixty nine, we
had two children, two of the most beautiful little girls
God ever created. They were my life and I spent
every waking minute with them. My wife's family lived in Smithville, Mississippi,
and she would travel there with the children on occasion,
sometimes staying two weeks at a time. I was happy
she was close enough to her family that she could,
in just a short trip, be back in her hometown
to visit and stay. It certainly helped whenever she was homesick.
Her parents loved the children as much as we did. Usually,
on the last weekend of her stay, I would drive
down after work on Friday afternoon to spend the weekend
with all of them. On Sunday afternoon, we would return
home in two cars. I must interject that in those days,
it was unusual for a young family to have two cars.
Our family car was a gift from my father in
law to us on our wedding Dad, and the car
I drove was a company car my employer allowed me
to use as long as I compensated them for the
mileage I put on the vehicle. My company car was
usually packed with items for my job, so the girls
always rode home with my wife, with me right in
front of them or behind them all the way home.
On a spring night in nineteen seventy one, we were
leaving Smithville after spending the Easter weekend with my in laws.
The weather had been good all weekend, but on Sunday afternoon,
one of those violent fronts began to roll through the
midst south just as we left for home. It would
be a rough drive back to Memphis on a stormy night.
We pulled out of the drive around five pm, not
knowing the storms were so close. The first four or
five miles down the gravel road were pleasant. The sun
was beginning to set in the west. I could see
those ominous purple storm clouds moving toward towards us quickly,
but I didn't think too much of it. My wife
is still a good driver today, and I knew my
girls were in good hands. Before the rain began to fall,
the wind picked up quickly. There was a steady blow
with violent gusts often. It was not long before I
suspected this system could produce tornadoes. My wife was a
quarter mile ahead of me and I could not see
her tail lights. She was creeping along the gravel road
with her vision obscured. As the sheets of rain pelted
the windshield. The wipers were not keeping up. She considered
stopping and waiting the rain out, but making it to
the main highway was her goal and would have given
her a bit of confidence feeling the smooth black top
surface under her tires, so she continued on. Normally, at
this time of day, there would have been a hint
of light in the western horizon, but the storm clouds
in the thick forest lining the road blocked any light.
My wife was struggling and certainly scared for her children.
I could still not see her tail lights, which in
my view was a good thing. That meant she was
still moving ahead. My right rear tire went flat. I
had flats on this car and was quick at making
a change, but of all days to have a flat,
it had to happen on this night with no rain gear.
I quickly jumped back to the trunk and extracted the flashlight,
the jack, and the spare, and went quickly to work
in the freezing rain. In another circumstance, I would have
waited for the rain to ease up a bit, but
I needed to catch back up with my wife if
that was even possible. I went to work raising the
rear end of the car. Approximately one mile ahead. My
wife entered the worst of the storm. To this day,
we believe a small tornado touched down a short distance
away from her and then moved directly over her car,
but the weather service back then had no way to
confirm this. In those days, a tornado was confirmed after
the storm had passed and damage was assessed. There were
no warnings. She was only three miles from the main
highway when the rain stopped abruptly. Naturally. She thought she
had made it through the storm, but within a few
seconds her car was hammered by large hail. The front
windshield was laying in her lap and all over my
three year old daughter, in chunks and in slivers. The
wind was blowing straight into what was once a solid windshield.
And then the wind picked up. Immediately, the trees on
her left were breaking loose at the trunks and blowing
across the gravel road in front of her. She mashed
her brakes and was coming to a stop when a
tree hit the car's left side, violently throwing the car
into a deep ditch on the right side of the road.
Due to the spring rains and the rain that had
fallen that afternoon, the ditch was full of water. When
the car finally stopped moving, my wife was on her
right side against the right passenger door, crushing my three
year old little girl, and they were both underwater. I
heard the roar of that wind ahead of me. I
was tightening down the first lug and I picked up
the pace even more. Finally, the tire was secure, and
I ran back to the driver's side door, leaving the
old tire and jack laying in the middle of the road.
My tires dug into the gravel and I was in motion,
working my way through the gears as fast as possible,
and I gained speed. I have no idea how fast
I was going. When I hit the first tree that
had been blown across the road. My body slammed into
the steering wheel as the car lurched up over a
large pine tree. When I came to a stop, I
could not see anything through the windshield. It was covered
with pine needles, and the rain fell in thick white sheets.
I gathered my wits about me and threw the car
in reverse to try and get off of the tree.
The car would not budge. I kept on the gas,
hoping my rear tires would grip something and free me
from this tree. But it was no use. I got
out of the car and jumped three feet to the
ground through the mass of pine tree limbs. The car
was off the ground, with the rear tires barely touching
the gravel. I needed weight on the back of the car,
but where would I get it, and there was nothing
I could do. I was filled with rage. My three
girls were in trouble and I could not get to them.
My wife suddenly realized what was happening. She had raised
her head above the water and caught a breath of air.
She was alive, and her thoughts became clear and sharp.
Mothers are that way when their children are in danger.
There is something primal, almost animal like, that comes over
a mother of any species that causes her to become
crafty and clever in the most extreme conditions in order
to do anything required to keep her children safe. My
wife could feel our daughter under her, kicking and clawing
for air. She had reached below her and pulled her
daughter to freedom beside her. Suddenly able to take in air,
our daughter began to cough and spit water she had
swallowed and inhaled. It is not like the movies when
a drowning person is pulled from the water and someone
does chest compressions causing the victim to spit water up,
and then the victim smiles and all is good. Know,
when a human inhales water, it is very painful. Even
more painful for the body to expel all the water
from their lungs and throat. It takes a long time
before they can fully breathe again. So our daughter suffered
through the agony of expelling muddy ditch water from her
lungs for days after this event. But as she coughed
and vomited, my wife pushed her towards the driver's side door,
which was above them. Now she reached to roll the
window down successfully and finally sent our daughter into the
falling rain outside, where she held on to the window
edge to keep from sliding off into the ditch again.
But there was another child in the back seat who
had been asleep. It was our nine month old little girl.
She had been laying in a baby seat in the
middle of the bench back seat. My wife looked over
into the back seat and saw her feet kicking, making
small splashes in the water that filled the right side
of the car. Still today, my wife has nightmares of
those tiny feet wiggling in the water back at my car.
My rage heightened at my predicament. In a fit, I
jumped back onto the threshold of the door and climbed
over onto the hood of the car, hoping to look
ahead and see my wife's car. But the rain continued
to fall. I did not see any other trees ahead
of me. I knew if I could just get free
from this tree and get past it, I might have
a chance to keep moving. I began to curse and
jump on the hood of the car. I was very
angry to be stuck here. I noticed the front of
the car began to rock forward, and I kept jumping,
causing the car to tilt or see saw back and forth.
Then a loud pop, and the car settled onto the tree.
A branch had broken, and the car fell some distance.
I jumped back off and saw that the rear tires
were now firmly on solid gravel. I started the car,
and this time I put the car in forward gear
and mashed the accelerator to the floor. The car lurched
forward a foot or two, and then it stopped. I
punched the gas again, and I was moving inch by inch.
Please keep moving, Please keep moving, I whispered to myself,
over and over until I was free of the tree
and rolling down the road again. My wife tried to
crawl back into the back seat to save our baby,
but she could not get over the seat. The muddy
water made the vinyl seat cover slippery, and she was
in a bad position to work her body over the seat.
She reached and could feel our daughter's sock covered foot,
but could not pull her free because she was strapped
into the baby seat, which was loosely held in place
by the old seat belts of those days. She began
to panic and screamed at the top of her loans
as she cried out to God to help her save
her baby. The car moved. In her panic and agony,
my wife felt the car move, then move again. She
looked up at our oldest holding on to the car door,
and saw her looking towards the back of the car.
She had stopped coughing and her eyes were wide open,
almost in a trance. As my wife looked upwards through
the driver's word, a large, dark figure hovered above our oldest.
Oh God, what now, my wife thought, and my oldest
disappeared from view. Within seconds, a large hand reached into
the driver's window and wrenched onto my wife's shoulder. She
remembers it being very painful. She was lifted out of
the car and gently set onto the muddy gravel on
the road. It was a huge beet standing in front
of and over the two women. Astonished at what she
was looking at, and at a loss for words, she
remembered our youngest and screamed at the creature that there
was another child in the car. The creature cocked its
head like a dog does when it hears a strange sound.
My wife got up and ran towards the car, pointing
at the back seat window. She then ran off down
into the water and began to claw at the undercarriage
of the car, grabbing mufflers, exhaust pipes, anything she could
reach to get up to the side of the car.
She fell back into the water, came back up on
her feet, and tried again. She could not climb to
gain access to her baby. I was moving at at
least sixty miles per hour when in my headlights I
saw a car lying on its side in the ditch.
I could see figures standing on the road next to
the car. Oh God, let it be someone else, I
whispered to myself. The rain fell straight down, the wind
was gone. I punched the gas pedal, and then I
saw a large figure in the distance jump onto the
side of the car. The car sank deeper into the
ditch from the weight of this thing. I was closer
now and I could see clearly what was happening. I slowed.
The dark figure lifted its leg and broke the glass
of the window. It laid flat on the side of
the car and was fishing with its arm for something
in the back seat. I could see my oldest daughter now,
and this confirmed my worst nightmare. This was my family.
I came to a complete stop and jumped from the
car and started running I could see my wife now
in the water, clinging to the underside of the overturned car.
She was crying and screaming at this thing on the car.
I hit the ditch at a full run and climbed
up the rear bumper, slipping and falling several times until
I made it on to the side of the car.
I was about to jump onto the creature that was
reaching into the car, when suddenly its body lifted upright
in a quick motion. There was a wet yellow blanket
in its huge left hand, my daughter. It had my
little girl. I started to lunge and try to pull
her from its hand, but the creature reached over me,
clinching down on the back of my leg. It lifted
me straight up, upside down and jumped with my daughter
in one hand in me and the other to the road.
It gently laid me onto the gravel. It then moved
to the ditch and moved my wife out onto the
road beside me. If this was not strange enough, it
lifted its left hand to see what it had removed
from the car. My daughter's legs hung limp between the
creature's fingers. There was no life there. My wife began
to cry and moan and begged the creature to hand
my daughter to her. But the beast just looked at
the baby in its hands. It clearly knew it held
a baby, and I saw a gentle posture come over
its whole being, taking a deep breath with a long exhale,
the massive right hand moved over my daughter's body, and
one large index finger gently pressed on my daughter's tiny chest.
My wife went silent. All I can remember was silence
and rain, And in the glow of those headlights, I
watched a female sisquatch gently pushed water from my daughter's lungs.
One small amount of water spit above her little mouth,
and then another, and then another, and then she coughed,
and then she cried, and we all cried, and the
beast looked at us and smiled in a strange way.
She lowered herself on to one knee and handed our
daughter to my wife. Then she stood up. She arched
her back as if to say this was a good day.
She inhaled a massive amount of air and expelled it
with a loud moan. It sounded like a thousand pound wolf.
I heard others inside the trees. She stepped into the
flooded ditch and came up on the other side. She
looked aback once and then she was gone. Headlights from
a tractor broke us from our trance. It was my
father in law. He had no idea what was happening
and had thought to patrol the road to make sure
no one needed any help after that storm. He didn't
know he would drive up on his own daughter's family.
We had to wait in my car for an ambulance
to get to us and take my girls to the
hospital to be examined. It seemed like ours. On the
following Wednesday, we were back in Memphis and my girls
were okay. We were a family again. It became obvious
two years later that my youngest daughter had suffered minor
brain damage from lack of oxygen on that day. There
were no tests then to see what the effects had been,
so we had to wait. The disability is not bad,
and she is now a productive member of society now.
The damage was not to her learning abilities. It was
only to a few motor skills and physical abilities. But
she still plays softball with a group of girls she
grew up with, so it has not affected her ability
to enjoy her life, nor did it affect her chances
to become a veterinarian. She works for one of the
largest zoos in the nation and specializes in and cares
for primates. My wife and I go back to that
spot in the road every Easter Sunday and leave a
huge bag of goodies a short distance into the woods.
We don't know who takes the bags, but the next
morning they are always gone. We like to think that
the sisquatch remember us too.