Speaker 1: I am retired now, but for forty five years I
was a general practice physician in Memphis, Tennessee. I enjoyed
being a doctor. It was an easy job for me
because I loved what I did. I was a partner
with a small practice most of those years, but before
that I worked in the er of one of the
largest hospitals in the mid South, And as you may
well know, we see all sorts of strange things in
the er. On a Saturday night in nineteen seventy four,
when we were usually very busy, a man was brought
in by ambulance who was suffering from chest pains, as
he described it. We treated him and found that he
was not having a heart attack. He was experiencing extreme
stress from an event that he had endured earlier in
the day, hyperventilating and shaking uncontrollably. In addition, it looked
as if he had been dragged through a briar patch.
He had scratches all over his face, arms, and legs.
He had come home from a hunting trip that evening,
and his wife noticed something was wrong with him and
called an ambulance. She walked into the er with him
and explained that he had been hunting that day and
had been dropped off by a friend. The minute he
walked into the house, she knew something was wrong. He
wouldn't talk, he would not even look at her, could
not get his breathing under control. She was sure he
was having a heart attack. We treated this man for
his symptoms, Namely, we wanted to calm him down and
be able to communicate with him. I was still in
school at the time and working under the supervision of
the resident er doctor, who suggested we give him a
mile sedative to help him relax and gain his composure.
The sedative was given and we left the room to
give it time to work. An hour later, I returned
to his room and he had calmed considerably. He immediately
asked to be discharged, but I thought it best that
he stayed with us for the evening so that we
could monitor his heart and other functions. It was now
after midnight and the fury of activity was slowing a
bit in the er, so I pulled up a chair
and visited with the man. His wife had left the
room to get something to eat, and it was just
he and I. He began to tell me the story
of his day. It was the craziest thing I had
ever heard. And I won't go into the whole thing here,
but understand that he had seen something in the woods
that day that scared him to death, even in his
more calm state. I only got bits and pieces, but
there was no doubt he had experienced mental trauma. If
he was telling the truth, I had my doubts until
three years later, when I experienced a similar event. I
remembered from my conversation with him was the location of
the event. My interest was piqued because it had taken
place in the White River National Wildlife Refuge in Arkansas,
not far from where I grew up. My family still
owned a land there, and many of my relatives still
hunted the area. Some hunted deer, but most shot ducks
all through the winter. I grew up in the hunting culture,
but I must be candid and say that I was
never an avid hunter. I enjoyed it, but it was
not my favorite hobby, as it was with most of
the men in my family. My hobby was photography. In
the seventies, camera technology was not like it is today.
We shot our pictures on thirty five millimeter color negative film.
At about this time, I was learning how to capture
images with chrome or slide film. It is the same
film that photographer used to take great pictures we saw
in National Geographic and Sports Illustrated. I was not good
at it, but I was getting better. Chrome film was
relatively new and it was expensive to have developed in
the lab. I mainly got bad images, but one out
of a thousand would look good and be worthy to keep.
Before I got married, this is what I spent my
extra cash on. Photography is a bottomless money pit hobby
for the amateur photographer. Instead of hunting with my friends
and family, I would tag along with the men and
take photographs. Many of those photos are in the family
still today. And I looked back at some and I
must say I was not very good at it, but
I did get a few decent images. It was November
in three years after my patient had come into the
er telling me his story that I was in the
White River Delta on a cold and overcast autumn morning.
I was alone that day in a flooded area of
timber owned by my father and a duck blind armed
only with my camera. I wanted to capture some great
images of the ducks during the early migration through our
neck of the woods. The duck season would open the
following weekend, so this was the perfect time to get
the images if the ducks would show up and before
the hunting pressure was on. I arrived by boat an
hour before sunrise so that I was well established in
quiet before the morning flight of mallards and pintails. I
had my gear set up, my film loaded, and my
tripod anchored, and was having a hot cup of coffee.
I felt a heavy thump on the bottom of the
elevated blind and it startled me. I stood to try
to see what the commotion was beneath me and saw
a beaver slide across the water surface, directly below the
brush that concealed the blind. I centered the animal in
my viewfinder as he pushed away from under the blind,
focused and took three exposures before the sound of the
camera alerted him to my presence and his tail slapped
the water on his dive to the bottom. I had
three possible good images already and the sun was not
fully lighting the day. I settled back on the bench
and I waited. A group of wood duck shot past
the top of the blind. They buzzed the top of
the brush blind three or four times before they shot
out over the horizon, but one mail in one one
female woody broke from the group and circle back to land.
I was ready and got several exposures while him and
his mate paddled along, feeding only a few yards from
my lens. The sun finally made it over the horizon,
and the trees that surrounded my location and the pool
in front of me now had decent light. All I
needed now was more ducks to light in the pool.
I heard a heavy splash in the distant swamp, and
I froze. It sounded like a tree had fallen, or
like a tree was thrown. In all my years in
these flooded delta areas, I had never heard this. I
sat motionless, looking in the direction of the sound. Then
there was another, followed by an evil roar. From this
point forward, it will be difficult to accurately describe what
I saw. This event lasted more than fifteen of twenty minutes,
I believe, but it seemed like only a few seconds.
Through the trees, though swollen cypress trunks and the minefield
of cypress knees, I saw a creature I had never
imagined in my worst nightmares emerge and walk towards my blind.
The distance at this point was well over one hundred
yards into the tree line, but I could see it
as clearly as if we were walking to me across
a baseball field. He was coming at me at a
steady pace. My heart was pounding, and there was nothing
I could do. The boat was tied behind the blind,
but I would make a lot of noise getting all
my gear in there and starting the engine with the ripcord.
So I sat perfectly still, hoping he had not seen me.
His shins split the water to each side with each
long stride, like a boat splits the water at the bow,
his arms hanging long enough to touch the water that
was knee high. His barreled a broad chest heaving as
he grunted loudly at each step, his breath misting and
swirling past his head in the chill of the morning,
like a steam locomotive. Now he was only fifty yards
away and about to enter the open pool where I
now sat. But as he closed on my position, I
saw his head begin to move side to side, as
if he were looking for something, searching. Maybe he had
not seen me. Maybe As he approached the largest tree
in our pool, he stopped. The wake from his stampede
rushed past his legs around the tree and the knees
that surrounded it, and in a second I felt my
boat slapping the post that held the blind in place.
My heart sank, and I began to feel nauseous. When
his head turned towards the blind, it was over for
me in that instant, and in my mind I could
see him rushing me from thirty yards distance and pulling
me headfirst out of the blind. But that's not what
he did. He turned his attention back to the pool
in front of him, that massive chest heaving, hands clenched,
and his head moved forward, searching the flooded forest. I
relaxed a bit on the bench, and I remained motionless,
watching from my concealed vantage point. Time stood still for me.
Seconds turned into hours. He moved forward into the pool,
going deeper into the water up to his waist and
coming up again out of the beaver trail, until he
was only ankle deep in the cold water, looking intently
again into the woods to my left. The roar that
came from the woods on my left was louder than
the roar I had heard only a few minutes before.
Four There was another one coming. I could hear it.
The water splashed, and the tree branches began to break
in the unseen distance, cracks that echoed through the timber,
as if we were in a concert hall. Over and
over and louder and louder the commotion came. My head
turned back to the beast in front of me. He
had assumed a defensive position. His knees were bent head
out in front of his bodies, and those tree trunk
arms outstretched with palms open. The roar that came next
shook me to my soul. My body felt weak, as
if imminent death was upon me, even though I knew
this thing was not concerned with me, or if he
even knew I was there. Through the trees to my left,
I saw a black flash move when Alpha Male number
two burst into the pool from the darkness of the timber.
It threw a large tree across the pond at the
standing in front of me, missing him with the mass
of the trunk, but showering him with the branches, and
they charged each other. When they collided, the ground beneath
the muddy blind vibrated so that the brush on top
of me began to fall into the blind. It was
the most violent attack of any animal I have ever
seen in real life or on television. There's no way
to describe it here. And they began to fight, blow
after blow to each other's head and upper torso. Slapping
and biting, roars and groans and grunts continued to rattle
my senses. Even though I was only a spectator at
this point, the event felt out of control. Only feet
in front of me, two bigfoot were fighting to the death.
The battle continued for some time, blow after blow and
bite after bite. The violent barrage of arms continued. I
remembered my camera. I had a camera with me. I
raised my thirty five millimeter to my eye and I
began to shoot. Exposure after exposure clicked off until the
film was spent. I loaded another roll and continued pressing
the shutter button, never once thinking to adjust my settings,
only dialing the focus ring. Another roll, and another, and another,
until six rolls of chrome film laid on the wet
wood floor of the blind. I was now out of film.
I bent down together the rolls I had dropped carefully
sliding the rolls into their tubes and dropping them in
my coat pocket. I had just captured the photographs of
the millennium, if they had turned out even remotely well
and pinning, I made it out of here alive. Water
burst over the top of the blind and showered me.
In my attempt to gather the film, I had taken
my eyes off the battle, and the beasts had moved
closer to me, easing my head just above the brush
to sea, I knew I was in trouble. A massive
back was just a few feet from me when the
aggressor slammed his body into the other, pushing the weight
of the two giants onto the top of the blind.
The structure collapsed on top of me, with the weight
of the beast pressing me into the water below. The
commotion above me was so violent that I was thrashed
around in the mud like an insect. I allowed my
body to relax and go with whatever force was pushing
me down. Now under water and with no less than
five hundred pounds of debris on top of me, I
dared not take a breath, though I would drown for sure,
and if I was lucky enough to come above the
water line. At some point I would be gagging and coughing,
drawing their attention to me. So I held my breath
as long as I could. The weight lifted and I
felt like I could move. I slowly, but in a
panic for air, moved my hand through the brush above me,
finding a large branch, and I pulled myself slowly to
the surface. Fighting through the brush to the surface was difficult.
When I knew my face was close, I eased my
mouth and nose to get oxygen and took a deep
breath of new air, and I stayed perfectly still, taking
in more air. The battle was still going on. I
could hear them through the water, but they had moved
over the blind and the boat and were behind me.
Now it was time to make my move, and my
head came fully out of the water, and my eyes
searched left and right for the beasts, finding them in
my peripheral several yards away from me. I raised my
whole upper body out of the mutt, and there they
continued the death match. Smaller trees snapped as they tumbled
further away from me. Wood splinters would fly back in
my direction several times, and the soul shaking roars continued.
I saw one of the titans begin to weaken. I
did not know which was which. They both looked identical
to me, except one being somewhat larger than the other.
The apparent loser took a massive blow to his head
and went down with the other on top of him.
In its weakened or day's state, it was pressed into
the water and drowned by the other. The loser seemed
to have a rally of strength and come above the water,
only to give the other a better hold, and he
was pressed back into the water until there was no movement.
It was over. The new Alpha stood erect and screamed
into the trees. He left the dead beast in the
water and began to slam one tree trunk, which he
had twisted off at its base, into another, in a
series of knocks that echoed through the bottom land. It
was bleeding profusely through its nose and mouth. Blood ran
down its chest and dripped continuously into the water. His
chest heaved from exhaustion, and the steam bowled off the
beasts Back in the cold morning air. It continued its
knocking until other monsters in the woods began to respond.
The first to walk onto the scene was a female,
which looked directly into the face of the alpha and
then down at the dead monster. Another smaller ape showed
up from the opposite direction. Soon there were four beasts
surrounding the kill. I was petrified in place. The cold
water was chilling me to the point that it was painful,
but I dared not move a muscle As I watched
through the brush and the wreckage that surrounded me. I
saw two younger males lift the dead bigfoot from the
water by its feet, and they began to walk away,
dragging the corpse behind them. The others followed, but not
the big male, who had just won his title. He
stayed and watched the crew walk away. All my hope
faded when he turned and walked a few steps back
in my direction. This was it. He knew I had
been there the whole time. I slowly lowered myself back
into the water, making myself as small as possible. I
was still camouflaged to some degree, being in the middle
of the pile of brush. I closed my eyes, hoping
that I would become invisible. There were noises close. I
opened one eye and saw the beast put his large
hand in the middle of my boat. He moved the
back and forth until it broke free from the tangle
and slowly slid across the water, bumping into a cypress knee.
The beast looked into the pile that I was in,
and he saw me. Our eyes locked, and there was
a moment when his eyes seemed to weaken a bit.
His brow softened as he cocked his head and then
bent down closer to get her better look at the
snow white face and the brush. Grabbing a handful of brush,
he pulled it away from the pile he was digging
for me. I gave up. I surrendered to whatever fate
was next. The beast had a clear view of me now,
and so I stood straight up in front of him,
water dripping from my soak, clothing and shivering. It cocked
its head another time, and then it turned away two
steps away from me, and it turned back to get
another look at me, and then it walked off into
the swamp. I heard those footsteps through the water for
several minutes, and then I was enveloped in silence. I'm
not sure how long I stood there, maybe ten minutes,
maybe an hour, but at some point. I moved and
walked to the boat and got into position to start
the motor. It started with one pull, thank god. Laying
in the bottom of that boat with my head propped
up against the gunneale with the engine purring, I looked
into the blue sky, closing and opening my eyes. The
clouds had cleared, and the blue sky looked like a
good omen. The fluffy white clouds rolled by as if
there had been no battle below at all. The earth
was still spinning, and I was still alive. These thoughts
gave me a sense of peace and strength to sit
up and begin my journey back to the boat ramp.
I clicked the transmission into forward, and the blue smoke
of the engine drifted into the air behind the motor
as I slowly made my way back to the rest
of my life. I don't remember the trip back to
the ramp, nor the drive home, but I had apparently
tied the boat onto the trailer sufficiently and made it
home safely. I lived alone at this time in my life,
so no one was there to greet me when I
walked into the door. I showered and sat on the
sofa in a robe until I drifted off to sleep.
The next morning was Sunday, and I woke as if
I had spent the night wrestling with monsters and a nightmare.
But it had not been a nightmare. I actually lived
through it. I checked in my pockets and pulled the
rolls of film from the still wet parka. They were
ruined and the tubes were full of water. As I
stated in the beginning, I was a part of a
wonderful medical practice for many years. I lived a good life,
and I at peace with everything I have seen and
done in my life. I told one man about my
day in the duck blind. Do you remember the man
who had come into the emergency room that night, all
those years ago. I looked him up in the following weeks,
I told him the story. I owed that to him.
He and I are best friends to this day. Now.
His story is as unbelievable as mine, but I will
let him tell you that on his own. Our stories
belonged to us until it's time to tell them, if
we ever tell them at all.