WEBVTT 1 00:00:02.480 --> 00:00:05.759 For decades, people have disappeared in the woods without a trace. 2 00:00:06.519 --> 00:00:10.279 Some blame wild animals, others whisper of creatures the world 3 00:00:10.359 --> 00:00:14.160 refuses to believe in. But those who have survived they 4 00:00:14.199 --> 00:00:18.679 know the truth. Welcome to Backwoods Bigfoot Stories, where we 5 00:00:18.719 --> 00:00:22.879 share real encounters with the things lurking in the darkness bigfoot, 6 00:00:23.199 --> 00:00:28.239 dog man, UFOs, and creatures that defy explanation. Some make 7 00:00:28.280 --> 00:00:32.320 it out, others aren't so lucky. Are you ready, because 8 00:00:32.320 --> 00:00:34.640 once you hear these stories, you'll never walk in the 9 00:00:34.640 --> 00:00:38.920 woods alone again. So grab your flashlight, stay close, and 10 00:00:39.039 --> 00:00:41.840 remember some things in the woods don't want to be found. 11 00:00:42.520 --> 00:00:46.240 Hit that follow or subscribe button, turn on auto downloads, 12 00:00:46.439 --> 00:00:47.840 and let's head off into the woods. 13 00:00:47.880 --> 00:01:04.560 If you dare. This is it the last one. 14 00:01:05.519 --> 00:01:07.599 If you've been with me through all four parts of 15 00:01:07.599 --> 00:01:10.719 this series, you know what we've been building toward. And 16 00:01:10.760 --> 00:01:13.640 if you haven't, if you jumped straight to part five 17 00:01:13.719 --> 00:01:16.400 because someone told you about the ending, I need you 18 00:01:16.439 --> 00:01:20.359 to stop, go back start with part one because what 19 00:01:20.359 --> 00:01:22.239 I'm about to tell you tonight only hits the way 20 00:01:22.280 --> 00:01:25.239 it's supposed to. If you've heard the other four stories first, 21 00:01:26.000 --> 00:01:28.879 this one doesn't work as a standalone. It's the last 22 00:01:28.879 --> 00:01:32.159 piece of something, and the pieces before it matter. But 23 00:01:32.239 --> 00:01:34.680 for those of you who've been here since Herschel's deer camp, 24 00:01:35.159 --> 00:01:37.920 let me take you through where we've been, because I 25 00:01:37.959 --> 00:01:41.879 want all of it fresh in your mind. Nineteen seventy eight, 26 00:01:42.280 --> 00:01:44.799 Herschel and three hunting buddies on a least parcel in 27 00:01:44.799 --> 00:01:48.319 the Kahudah Wilderness. Something came into their camp over the 28 00:01:48.359 --> 00:01:51.480 course of five nights and made itself known in stages. 29 00:01:52.200 --> 00:01:55.799 Coolers moved without damage, a deer carcass placed in the 30 00:01:55.840 --> 00:01:59.680 fire ring, coordinated knocking between the valley and the ridge, 31 00:02:00.359 --> 00:02:03.760 bipedal footsteps heavy enough to feel through the ground, and 32 00:02:03.840 --> 00:02:06.680 on the last night, reddish eye shine at eight feet 33 00:02:06.719 --> 00:02:09.919 in the hemlocks. When they broke camp, Herschel found a 34 00:02:09.960 --> 00:02:11.919 line of creek stones at the edge of the bench, 35 00:02:12.360 --> 00:02:18.039 evenly spaced, pointing north. Nineteen ninety four, Karen a seasonal 36 00:02:18.080 --> 00:02:21.479 Forest Service worker maintaining a fire road along the ridge 37 00:02:21.479 --> 00:02:25.560 line in Polk County, Tennessee, twelve miles north of Herschel's camp. 38 00:02:26.520 --> 00:02:30.039 Over three weeks, she documented tree breaks, a recurring smell 39 00:02:30.080 --> 00:02:33.439 on a schedule nineteen inch tracks in creek mud, and 40 00:02:33.520 --> 00:02:36.960 handprints with an opposing thumb on a clay bank, then 41 00:02:37.000 --> 00:02:40.039 the flat tire at night, the footsteps on the gravel, 42 00:02:40.479 --> 00:02:44.560 the pacing, and that breath, one long exhale from above 43 00:02:44.560 --> 00:02:47.360 her head height, close enough to hear the rasp of it. 44 00:02:48.199 --> 00:02:52.240 Two thousand and three, Marcus, a competitive bow hunter, on 45 00:02:52.319 --> 00:02:55.439 her ridge saddle in the Cherokee National Forest a few 46 00:02:55.439 --> 00:02:58.719 more miles north, he watched something step off a stump 47 00:02:58.759 --> 00:03:01.159 and walk upright through a cli cut for nearly four 48 00:03:01.199 --> 00:03:05.439 and a half minutes through a Swarowsky spotting scope, dark brown, 49 00:03:05.960 --> 00:03:09.599 seven and a half feet, arms to mid thigh. When 50 00:03:09.639 --> 00:03:11.879 he went back three days later with the trail camera, 51 00:03:12.199 --> 00:03:15.120 the SD card came back with nighttime images of an 52 00:03:15.199 --> 00:03:20.479 upright figure with infrared eyeshine. His brother, a state wildlife biologist, 53 00:03:20.759 --> 00:03:23.159 looked at the photos and said, I can't tell you 54 00:03:23.199 --> 00:03:28.639 what that is. Twenty eleven, David, a youth pastor, driving 55 00:03:28.639 --> 00:03:30.919 a van full of teenagers through the valley on a 56 00:03:30.919 --> 00:03:34.479 two lane highway. Something walked into the road, tall enough 57 00:03:34.520 --> 00:03:37.199 that the headlights caught it at the chest. The van 58 00:03:37.280 --> 00:03:40.120 hit it hard enough to spin into a ditch. When 59 00:03:40.159 --> 00:03:42.960 David got out, it was standing at the tree line 60 00:03:43.000 --> 00:03:47.520 watching two of the teenagers now adults, corroborated every detail. 61 00:03:48.240 --> 00:03:51.000 The tow truck driver who responded mentioned he'd pulled three 62 00:03:51.039 --> 00:03:53.439 other vehicles out of that same quarter mile stretch in 63 00:03:53.479 --> 00:03:58.560 the past year. Four stories, four decades. Four people who've 64 00:03:58.560 --> 00:04:04.039 never spoken to each other, same ridgeline, same valley, same corridor, 65 00:04:04.599 --> 00:04:11.680 same behavioral patterns, patience, deliberation, control, something that doesn't stumble 66 00:04:11.719 --> 00:04:16.240 into encounters by accident, something that manages them. And now 67 00:04:16.319 --> 00:04:20.480 we're here part five. This story is different from the 68 00:04:20.519 --> 00:04:22.800 other four, and I need to explain why before we 69 00:04:22.879 --> 00:04:26.759 get into it. The first four submissions came to me independently, 70 00:04:27.399 --> 00:04:31.680 different months, different formats, no awareness of each other. I 71 00:04:31.759 --> 00:04:34.959 noticed the geographic pattern myself after the third one came 72 00:04:35.000 --> 00:04:38.120 in when I happened to pull up a map. This 73 00:04:38.160 --> 00:04:41.199 one came in because of the series. A man named 74 00:04:41.279 --> 00:04:44.040 Jean listened to the first four episodes as they aired. 75 00:04:44.600 --> 00:04:47.560 He told me he started casually. His daughter had sent 76 00:04:47.639 --> 00:04:49.959 him a link, which I think says something about how 77 00:04:50.000 --> 00:04:53.600 stories travel through families. He listened to part one while 78 00:04:53.639 --> 00:04:56.879 he was doing dishes. By part two, he was sitting 79 00:04:56.879 --> 00:05:00.519 at the kitchen table with the volume up. By part three. 80 00:05:00.560 --> 00:05:04.519 He wasn't doing anything else. He was just listening. And 81 00:05:04.560 --> 00:05:07.959 somewhere around the middle of part three, when Marcus describes 82 00:05:08.000 --> 00:05:11.240 the clear cut in the Cherokee, Jeene paused the audio. 83 00:05:11.959 --> 00:05:14.439 He got up from his kitchen table. He walked down 84 00:05:14.439 --> 00:05:16.800 the hallway to a closet, and he pulled out a 85 00:05:16.839 --> 00:05:20.199 cardboard box he hadn't opened in over thirty years. The 86 00:05:20.240 --> 00:05:23.600 box was dusty, the tape holding it shut was yellowed 87 00:05:23.600 --> 00:05:26.199 and brittle. He told me he stood there in the 88 00:05:26.240 --> 00:05:29.079 hallway holding it and his hands were trembling, and it 89 00:05:29.120 --> 00:05:32.040 wasn't from the weight. When he wrote to me, his 90 00:05:32.120 --> 00:05:36.000 email was one paragraph long. It said, I've been listening 91 00:05:36.040 --> 00:05:37.839 to your series and I need to talk to you. 92 00:05:38.519 --> 00:05:41.600 I surveyed the property boundary that runs through every location 93 00:05:41.680 --> 00:05:45.040 your people are describing. I did it in nineteen eighty 94 00:05:45.079 --> 00:05:49.040 seven for a timber company. I have field notes, plat maps, 95 00:05:49.279 --> 00:05:52.519 and a cassette tape I recorded on site. I also 96 00:05:52.560 --> 00:05:55.439 have information about the geography of that ridge line that 97 00:05:55.519 --> 00:05:57.800 none of your other guests mentioned, and I think it 98 00:05:57.879 --> 00:06:02.199 might explain why this corridor exists. Please call me. I 99 00:06:02.240 --> 00:06:06.120 called him within the hour. Jeane is seventy one retired, 100 00:06:06.600 --> 00:06:09.519 lives in a small town in North Georgia about forty 101 00:06:09.560 --> 00:06:13.279 minutes from Dalton, which, if you've been paying attention, puts 102 00:06:13.319 --> 00:06:16.000 him in the same general orbit as Herschel, though the 103 00:06:16.000 --> 00:06:18.120 two men have never met and didn't know each other 104 00:06:18.199 --> 00:06:21.639 existed until this series aired. He worked as a land 105 00:06:21.639 --> 00:06:25.680 surveyor for thirty four years. Started as a rodman that's 106 00:06:25.720 --> 00:06:28.720 the entry level position, the person who holds the rod 107 00:06:28.759 --> 00:06:32.759 while the instrument operator takes the readings. In nineteen seventy six, 108 00:06:33.199 --> 00:06:36.439 right out of high school. His father had been in construction, 109 00:06:36.759 --> 00:06:39.759 and Jean grew up around job sites. He took to 110 00:06:39.800 --> 00:06:43.879 surveying naturally. The precision of it appealed to him. The 111 00:06:43.959 --> 00:06:45.759 outdoor work appealed to him. 112 00:06:46.480 --> 00:06:47.000 The fact that. 113 00:06:46.959 --> 00:06:50.759 When you finished a survey, you had something definitive, a map, 114 00:06:51.040 --> 00:06:54.240 a set of measurements, a legal document that said this 115 00:06:54.399 --> 00:06:56.519 is the shape of this piece of ground and here 116 00:06:56.560 --> 00:06:57.560 are its boundaries. 117 00:06:57.959 --> 00:06:58.920 That appealed to him. 118 00:06:59.160 --> 00:07:03.120 Most of all, Jane likes things that are settled, things 119 00:07:03.160 --> 00:07:05.959 that are known. He got his license in eighty two. 120 00:07:06.839 --> 00:07:09.120 By eighty five he was running his own two man 121 00:07:09.199 --> 00:07:12.680 crew for a regional surveying firm that handled contracts all 122 00:07:12.720 --> 00:07:18.120 over the North Georgia and East Tennessee Mountains, boundary surveys, subdivisions, 123 00:07:18.360 --> 00:07:20.480 timber tracks, highway projects. 124 00:07:21.079 --> 00:07:22.519 He did them all. 125 00:07:22.560 --> 00:07:25.120 He retired in twenty ten, which means he spent his 126 00:07:25.319 --> 00:07:29.319 entire adult working life from eighteen to sixty four, forty 127 00:07:29.319 --> 00:07:31.600 six years if you count the Rodman years before he 128 00:07:31.639 --> 00:07:35.600 got his license, walking property lines through the Southern Appalachians. 129 00:07:36.240 --> 00:07:38.519 He knows those mountains the way a river pilot knows 130 00:07:38.519 --> 00:07:44.240 a channel, every drainage, every ridge, every rock formation. He's 131 00:07:44.279 --> 00:07:46.120 read the ground the way most people. 132 00:07:45.839 --> 00:07:46.680 Read a page. 133 00:07:47.079 --> 00:07:49.160 I want you to hold on to that because it's 134 00:07:49.199 --> 00:07:52.879 important for understanding why Jane's contribution to this series is 135 00:07:52.920 --> 00:07:56.360 different from the others. He wasn't passing through that corridor. 136 00:07:56.720 --> 00:07:59.439 He wasn't hunting or working a seasonal job, or driving 137 00:07:59.519 --> 00:08:02.560 a highway at night. He was mapping it. He was 138 00:08:02.639 --> 00:08:06.040 creating the legal record of its shape and features. He 139 00:08:06.199 --> 00:08:09.160 was doing, in a very literal sense, what this whole 140 00:08:09.199 --> 00:08:12.360 series has been trying to do, drawing the boundaries of 141 00:08:12.399 --> 00:08:15.959 the corridor and documenting what's inside them. If you don't 142 00:08:15.959 --> 00:08:19.120 know what land surveyors actually do day to day, let 143 00:08:19.120 --> 00:08:22.959 me give you the short version because it matters. Surveyors 144 00:08:23.079 --> 00:08:29.360 establish property boundaries using precision instruments transit theodolite GPS in 145 00:08:29.439 --> 00:08:33.279 later years to measure angles and distances between fixed points 146 00:08:33.320 --> 00:08:37.039 on the ground. They set monuments, which are permanent markers 147 00:08:37.559 --> 00:08:42.039 iron pins driven into the earth, concrete posts, sometimes just 148 00:08:42.080 --> 00:08:44.759 a nail in a tree. At corners, and a long 149 00:08:44.840 --> 00:08:49.080 boundary lines. They create plat maps, which are scale drawing 150 00:08:49.200 --> 00:08:52.879 showing the shape of a property, the distances between monuments, 151 00:08:53.320 --> 00:08:56.320 the bearings of each line, and any significant features that 152 00:08:56.399 --> 00:09:02.559 fall within or along the boundary. Roads, creeks, rockout crops, structures, easements. 153 00:09:02.720 --> 00:09:05.399 All of it goes on the map. Here's the thing 154 00:09:05.399 --> 00:09:09.279 about surveyors that most people don't appreciate. They walk the ground, 155 00:09:09.759 --> 00:09:12.600 every foot of it. They don't look at satellite images 156 00:09:12.720 --> 00:09:14.159 or fly over in a helicopter. 157 00:09:14.799 --> 00:09:16.080 They physically walk. 158 00:09:15.840 --> 00:09:20.639 Every boundary line through whatever terrain that line crosses, ridge lines, 159 00:09:20.799 --> 00:09:26.080 creek bottoms, laurel thickets, rock faces, swamps. If the property 160 00:09:26.120 --> 00:09:29.600 line goes through it, the surveyor goes through it. Jeane 161 00:09:29.639 --> 00:09:32.360 told me he estimates he walked over ten thousand miles 162 00:09:32.360 --> 00:09:35.399 of boundary line during his career. Most of it through 163 00:09:35.480 --> 00:09:38.159 rough country that nobody else had any reason to visit. 164 00:09:38.960 --> 00:09:41.360 He saw parts of those mountains that hunters never reach 165 00:09:41.480 --> 00:09:42.759 and hikers never find. 166 00:09:43.519 --> 00:09:45.519 He was, in many ways the. 167 00:09:45.600 --> 00:09:48.879 Last person to physically walk certain pieces of ground before 168 00:09:48.919 --> 00:09:52.159 they disappeared back into the forest, and in the spring 169 00:09:52.200 --> 00:09:55.000 of nineteen eighty seven, one of those boundary lines took 170 00:09:55.080 --> 00:09:55.840 him straight. 171 00:09:55.559 --> 00:09:57.000 Through the heart of the corridor. 172 00:09:57.799 --> 00:10:00.559 The job came from a timber company, not the same 173 00:10:00.600 --> 00:10:04.440 one Herschel's group had least from, but a successor. The 174 00:10:04.519 --> 00:10:07.480 original company had gone under in the early eighties, and 175 00:10:07.519 --> 00:10:10.360 its holdings had been acquired by a larger outfit based 176 00:10:10.399 --> 00:10:13.919 out of Chattanooga. The new company wanted a fresh survey 177 00:10:13.960 --> 00:10:17.840 of a large tract it had purchased, roughly eight thousand acres, 178 00:10:17.840 --> 00:10:20.679 spanning both sides of the state line from the Upper 179 00:10:20.759 --> 00:10:24.879 Kohutta region and Georgia north into Polk County, Tennessee. They 180 00:10:24.919 --> 00:10:29.120 needed updated plat maps, boundary verification, and a timber cruise, 181 00:10:29.679 --> 00:10:32.679 which is an inventory of the standing timber species and 182 00:10:32.799 --> 00:10:35.840 volume to determine what was worth cutting and what wasn't. 183 00:10:36.559 --> 00:10:40.240 Jane's firm got the contract. Jean and his partner, a 184 00:10:40.279 --> 00:10:43.080 man named Bill, who he'd worked with for about six 185 00:10:43.159 --> 00:10:46.879 years at that point, were assigned the boundary survey. The 186 00:10:46.919 --> 00:10:49.759 timber crews would be done separately by a forestry crew. 187 00:10:50.399 --> 00:10:53.480 The job was big. Eight thousand acres is a lot 188 00:10:53.519 --> 00:10:56.720 of ground. To put it in perspective, that's about twelve 189 00:10:56.799 --> 00:10:59.879 and a half square miles. The perimeter of the track 190 00:11:00.120 --> 00:11:04.039 was roughly twenty two miles, plus internal divisions between parcels 191 00:11:04.039 --> 00:11:07.320 that had been subdivided over the years by different owners. 192 00:11:07.840 --> 00:11:10.320 Gene and Bill estimated it would take three to four 193 00:11:10.320 --> 00:11:13.360 weeks in the field to walk the entire boundary, set 194 00:11:13.440 --> 00:11:16.639 monuments at every corner and angle point, and gather all 195 00:11:16.679 --> 00:11:20.279 the data they needed for the plat maps. They couldn't commute. 196 00:11:20.600 --> 00:11:23.759 The property was too remote, too far from any paved 197 00:11:23.840 --> 00:11:26.840 road to drive in and out every day, so they'd 198 00:11:26.840 --> 00:11:29.679 camp on site, the way Gene had done on dozens 199 00:11:29.679 --> 00:11:33.000 of jobs before this one. The timber company gave them 200 00:11:33.039 --> 00:11:35.919 a contact name, a set of old plat maps from 201 00:11:35.960 --> 00:11:39.159 the previous survey, which were from the early seventies and 202 00:11:39.200 --> 00:11:44.000 weren't reliable, and a general directive walk the boundary, verify 203 00:11:44.159 --> 00:11:47.720 or replace all existing monuments, set new ones where needed, 204 00:11:47.960 --> 00:11:50.600 and produce an updated set of plat maps that could 205 00:11:50.600 --> 00:11:53.320 be used for the timber crews and for any future 206 00:11:53.360 --> 00:11:58.559 transactions involving the property. Standard scope of work. Nothing unusual 207 00:11:58.600 --> 00:12:00.120 about the job on paper. 208 00:12:00.480 --> 00:12:01.120 Jeane told me. 209 00:12:01.159 --> 00:12:04.039 He remembers the first morning they drove in March of 210 00:12:04.080 --> 00:12:08.919 eighty seven, cold, overcast, the mountains still wearing winter, even 211 00:12:08.960 --> 00:12:12.960 though the calendar said spring. The dogwoods hadn't bloomed yet. 212 00:12:13.440 --> 00:12:14.600 The hardwoods were bare. 213 00:12:15.320 --> 00:12:17.440 You could see through the forest and away you can't 214 00:12:17.480 --> 00:12:21.240 once the leaves come in, long sight lines through the trunks, 215 00:12:21.720 --> 00:12:25.080 the ridge lines visible as sharp gray lines against the sky. 216 00:12:26.039 --> 00:12:28.559 They took the company truck up an old logging road, 217 00:12:29.080 --> 00:12:33.120 rough washed out in places barely passable, to a flat 218 00:12:33.120 --> 00:12:36.720 spot near the southern end of the tract, unloaded their gear, 219 00:12:37.120 --> 00:12:40.559 set up a base camp, two canvas tents, a cook 220 00:12:40.600 --> 00:12:44.200 set up with a propane stove, their instruments in hard cases, 221 00:12:44.519 --> 00:12:47.399 a five gallon water jug, and a cooler with enough 222 00:12:47.399 --> 00:12:50.720 food for a week. They'd resupply on weekends when they 223 00:12:50.799 --> 00:12:54.600 drove home. And then they started walking the lines. Here's 224 00:12:54.600 --> 00:12:56.879 what I want you to understand about what Gene found 225 00:12:57.159 --> 00:12:59.679 over the next three and a half weeks and whyat 226 00:12:59.679 --> 00:13:03.960 mattered for this series. Jane wasn't looking for anything unusual. 227 00:13:04.279 --> 00:13:07.480 He wasn't a researcher. He wasn't interested in the paranormal. 228 00:13:07.840 --> 00:13:08.759 He was a surveyor. 229 00:13:09.279 --> 00:13:12.720 He was there to walk lines, set pins, and make maps. 230 00:13:13.279 --> 00:13:13.720 That's it. 231 00:13:14.519 --> 00:13:16.960 And the thing about surveyors is that they noticed terrain 232 00:13:17.039 --> 00:13:19.960 features the way most people notice furniture in a room. 233 00:13:20.279 --> 00:13:24.360 It's automatic. You're walking a line, you're recording what you see, 234 00:13:24.720 --> 00:13:27.480 and you're noting anything that might affect the boundary or 235 00:13:27.519 --> 00:13:28.000 the use. 236 00:13:27.879 --> 00:13:28.600 Of the property. 237 00:13:29.279 --> 00:13:34.799 Creeks, rock out crops, old roads, fence lines, structures, changes 238 00:13:34.799 --> 00:13:37.759 in vegetation, all of it goes in the field notes. 239 00:13:38.639 --> 00:13:41.480 Jean's field notes from the eighty seven survey filled two 240 00:13:41.600 --> 00:13:46.639 composition notebooks College ruled black and white marbled covers. He 241 00:13:46.720 --> 00:13:49.600 still has them. He pulled them out of that cardboard 242 00:13:49.600 --> 00:13:52.240 box the night he listened to Part three, and they're 243 00:13:52.279 --> 00:13:54.440 sitting on his kitchen table as I'm telling you this. 244 00:13:55.440 --> 00:13:57.759 He read me sections of them over the phone, and 245 00:13:57.799 --> 00:14:01.120 I could hear him turning the pages. The paper is yellowed, 246 00:14:01.600 --> 00:14:05.159 the ink is faded in places, but the entries are legible, 247 00:14:05.360 --> 00:14:08.840 and they're detailed. In the first week, working the southern 248 00:14:08.840 --> 00:14:12.559 boundary near the Georgia Tennessee line, Jane and Bill encountered 249 00:14:12.639 --> 00:14:16.360 terrain that Jene described as the quietest ground I've ever 250 00:14:16.399 --> 00:14:19.559 worked on. He didn't mean that in a poetic way. 251 00:14:20.039 --> 00:14:23.399 He meant it literally. The southern portion of the tract 252 00:14:23.440 --> 00:14:26.399 includes the upper end of the valley, the same valley 253 00:14:26.440 --> 00:14:30.879 Herschel described the same one Karen's fire Road overlooked, the 254 00:14:30.919 --> 00:14:33.759 same gap between ridges that all five stories in this 255 00:14:33.840 --> 00:14:37.000 series keep coming back to. And Jean said, when they 256 00:14:37.080 --> 00:14:39.720 dropped into that valley to survey a boundary line that 257 00:14:39.759 --> 00:14:44.399 crossed it, the sound changed. The birds stopped, the wind, 258 00:14:44.440 --> 00:14:48.639 noise dropped. Even their own footsteps sounded muffled, like the 259 00:14:48.679 --> 00:14:52.240 ground was absorbing the sound instead of reflecting it. I 260 00:14:52.320 --> 00:14:56.080 made a note about it, Jean said, March nineteenth, eighty seven. 261 00:14:56.600 --> 00:15:01.559 I wrote, valley floor between ridges unusual, ually quiet, sound 262 00:15:01.639 --> 00:15:05.159 dampening effect. Bill noticed it too. Stay tuned for more 263 00:15:05.240 --> 00:15:11.240 Backwoods Bigfoot stories. We'll be back after these messages. That's 264 00:15:11.279 --> 00:15:14.240 word for word from the notebook. Bill noticed it. 265 00:15:14.799 --> 00:15:15.440 That matters. 266 00:15:16.080 --> 00:15:21.480 This wasn't one person's subjective impression. Both men independently registered 267 00:15:21.480 --> 00:15:23.960 that something about the acoustics in that valley was off. 268 00:15:24.840 --> 00:15:27.320 I want you to think about that in the context. 269 00:15:26.840 --> 00:15:27.600 Of this series. 270 00:15:28.240 --> 00:15:31.759 Herschel described the valley as feeling like being inside a church. 271 00:15:32.679 --> 00:15:35.360 Karen described a density to the silence on the ridge 272 00:15:35.360 --> 00:15:39.000 above it. Marcus noted that the clearcut went dead quiet 273 00:15:39.039 --> 00:15:41.600 when the dos reacted to whatever was on that stump. 274 00:15:42.399 --> 00:15:45.919 And now Gene nine years before Karen and sixteen years 275 00:15:45.919 --> 00:15:48.799 before Marcus is writing in his field notes that the 276 00:15:48.879 --> 00:15:53.600 valley floor has an unusual sound dampening quality. Four different people, 277 00:15:53.960 --> 00:15:58.799 four different decades, all independently describing the same acoustic phenomenon 278 00:15:59.120 --> 00:16:03.480 in the same location. That's not anecdotal anymore. That's a 279 00:16:03.480 --> 00:16:07.960 pattern with physical characteristics. Jane told me the quiet bothered 280 00:16:08.000 --> 00:16:11.159 Bill more than it bothered him. Bill was a talker, 281 00:16:11.600 --> 00:16:14.639 similar to Jimbo and Herschel's crew, the kind of guy 282 00:16:14.639 --> 00:16:18.720 who filled silence with conversation because silence made him uncomfortable. 283 00:16:19.360 --> 00:16:23.759 When they were working in that valley, Bill talked more, louder, faster, 284 00:16:24.440 --> 00:16:26.759 like he was trying to compensate for the missing sound. 285 00:16:27.600 --> 00:16:30.840 Jane noticed it, but didn't say anything. They had work 286 00:16:30.879 --> 00:16:34.200 to do, But I asked Jane about it. Did Bill 287 00:16:34.200 --> 00:16:37.279 ever say anything directly about the valley? Did he ever 288 00:16:37.360 --> 00:16:41.159 name what he was feeling? Once, Jeene said, we were 289 00:16:41.240 --> 00:16:43.759 running a line along the valley floor, and Bill stopped 290 00:16:43.759 --> 00:16:47.240 and said, this place doesn't want us here, just like 291 00:16:47.320 --> 00:16:51.759 that flat not joking. I looked at him and he 292 00:16:51.799 --> 00:16:54.440 looked at me, and neither of us said anything else. 293 00:16:55.080 --> 00:16:57.679 We just went back to work. I want to sit 294 00:16:57.759 --> 00:17:00.720 on that for a second. This place does want us here. 295 00:17:01.879 --> 00:17:04.880 A professional land surveyor, a man who's walked through every 296 00:17:04.960 --> 00:17:07.839 kind of terrain in the Southern Appalachians stops in the 297 00:17:07.880 --> 00:17:10.839 middle of a job and says that not this place 298 00:17:10.920 --> 00:17:14.160 is creepy or I don't like it here. He said, 299 00:17:14.160 --> 00:17:17.359 it doesn't want them there, like the land itself had 300 00:17:17.400 --> 00:17:20.640 an opinion. And here's something else. I asked Jane about 301 00:17:21.240 --> 00:17:24.119 the nights, because they were camping on the track for 302 00:17:24.160 --> 00:17:27.400 three and a half weeks, sleeping out there, and I 303 00:17:27.440 --> 00:17:30.279 wanted to know what the knights were like. He told 304 00:17:30.279 --> 00:17:34.640 me most nights were fine, quiet, they'd eat, clean up, 305 00:17:34.960 --> 00:17:38.160 turn in early because the days started at dawn. He'd 306 00:17:38.160 --> 00:17:40.640 read by flashlight for a little while and fall asleep. 307 00:17:41.359 --> 00:17:46.599 Nothing unusual. Bill snored the fire would die down normal 308 00:17:46.640 --> 00:17:49.880 camp nights, but there were two or three nights. Gene 309 00:17:49.880 --> 00:17:52.640 couldn't pin down exactly which ones because he didn't log 310 00:17:52.680 --> 00:17:55.799 them the way he logged his daytime observations, where he 311 00:17:55.839 --> 00:17:59.960 woke up and the woods were silent, not quiet, silent, 312 00:18:00.960 --> 00:18:03.680 the kind of silence where you noticed the absence of sound, 313 00:18:03.960 --> 00:18:07.200 the way you'd notice a light going out. No insects, 314 00:18:07.720 --> 00:18:12.319 no owls, no creak, noise, nothing. He'd lie in his 315 00:18:12.400 --> 00:18:14.720 tent and listen and feel his heart rate climb and 316 00:18:14.759 --> 00:18:18.519 not know why. Nothing happened on those nights. Nothing he 317 00:18:18.559 --> 00:18:23.920 could point to. No sounds, no movement, no footsteps, just 318 00:18:24.000 --> 00:18:27.920 the silence and the feeling, the same feeling he'd had 319 00:18:27.920 --> 00:18:30.920 on the valley floor during the day that something was 320 00:18:30.960 --> 00:18:35.839 out there close paying attention. He never got up to look, 321 00:18:36.359 --> 00:18:38.279 he told me he didn't want to see whatever it was. 322 00:18:39.279 --> 00:18:40.319 I wasn't a brave. 323 00:18:40.079 --> 00:18:41.160 Man about it, he said. 324 00:18:41.680 --> 00:18:43.599 I just lay there and waited for it to pass, 325 00:18:44.200 --> 00:18:47.680 and it always did. By morning, the birds were back 326 00:18:47.680 --> 00:18:50.799 and the creek was running, and everything sounded normal, like 327 00:18:50.839 --> 00:18:53.960 the night had been wiped clean. I asked him if 328 00:18:54.000 --> 00:18:57.759 Bill ever mentioned waking up to the silence. No, Jean said, 329 00:18:58.279 --> 00:19:01.160 and I never asked him. Two men on a ridge 330 00:19:01.160 --> 00:19:03.680 line for three and a half weeks, both of them 331 00:19:03.720 --> 00:19:06.799 sensing something they couldn't name, neither of them willing to 332 00:19:06.839 --> 00:19:09.680 say it out loud. That's the weight of this subject. 333 00:19:10.160 --> 00:19:13.240 That's what it does to people. It isolates them inside 334 00:19:13.279 --> 00:19:16.519 their own experience, because the experience doesn't have a category, 335 00:19:16.960 --> 00:19:20.680 and you can't share something you can't categorize. Over the 336 00:19:20.720 --> 00:19:23.000 first two weeks, as they worked their way north along 337 00:19:23.079 --> 00:19:26.359 the property boundary, Gene logged several things in his field 338 00:19:26.400 --> 00:19:29.559 notes that he filed under terrain observations at the time, 339 00:19:30.480 --> 00:19:34.359 just standard field documentation stuff that went into the notebook, 340 00:19:34.400 --> 00:19:37.920 because that's what surveyors do. You write down what you see, 341 00:19:38.319 --> 00:19:41.599 whether you understand it or not. He didn't attach any 342 00:19:41.599 --> 00:19:45.480 special significance to these observations in eighty seven. They were 343 00:19:45.519 --> 00:19:50.839 just entries in a composition notebook data without context. Thirty 344 00:19:50.839 --> 00:19:55.519 seven years later, the context arrived. Tree breaks. He found 345 00:19:55.559 --> 00:19:58.759 them along the ridge line on the western boundary, small 346 00:19:58.799 --> 00:20:04.240 diameter hardwood, sour wood, dogwood, young hickory, snapped between six 347 00:20:04.279 --> 00:20:07.680 and nine feet above the ground, some with tops propped 348 00:20:07.680 --> 00:20:11.599 against adjacent trees in ways that didn't look like natural windfall, 349 00:20:12.400 --> 00:20:14.519 a few with what he described in his notes as 350 00:20:14.559 --> 00:20:17.799 spiral fractures, though at the time he attributed them to 351 00:20:17.880 --> 00:20:21.480 ice loading from the previous winter. He logged the locations 352 00:20:21.519 --> 00:20:23.839 and estimated the ages of the breaks where he could, 353 00:20:24.319 --> 00:20:27.839 based on how weather the exposed wood was. He told 354 00:20:27.839 --> 00:20:30.000 me he counted at least fifteen along a two mile 355 00:20:30.039 --> 00:20:33.079 stretch of the ridge. He didn't think it was unusual 356 00:20:33.119 --> 00:20:36.759 at the time. He'd seen ice damage before, but he'd 357 00:20:36.759 --> 00:20:39.279 never seen it concentrated along a ridge line and a 358 00:20:39.319 --> 00:20:42.480 line like that, and he'd never seen spiral fractures in 359 00:20:42.559 --> 00:20:45.519 sourwood from ice. He made a note of it and 360 00:20:45.599 --> 00:20:49.000 kept moving. When he heard Karen and Marcus described the 361 00:20:49.039 --> 00:20:54.319 same thing, same species, same height range, same spiral fractures, 362 00:20:54.720 --> 00:20:58.079 same linear pattern along the ridge, he said, the hair 363 00:20:58.200 --> 00:21:00.839 on his arms stood up. He was sitting at his 364 00:21:00.920 --> 00:21:03.640 kitchen table listening on his phone, and he looked down 365 00:21:03.680 --> 00:21:06.160 at his own arms and the hair was standing straight up. 366 00:21:07.039 --> 00:21:08.799 That's when I got up and went to the closet, 367 00:21:08.839 --> 00:21:10.400 he told me. That's when I. 368 00:21:10.359 --> 00:21:11.240 Pulled out the box. 369 00:21:12.160 --> 00:21:17.279 He also found tracks once March twenty third, about ten 370 00:21:17.359 --> 00:21:20.480 days into the survey, they were running a line along 371 00:21:20.519 --> 00:21:22.920 a creek crossing on the eastern side of the property, 372 00:21:23.200 --> 00:21:26.279 near the valley floor. The creek had cut a channel 373 00:21:26.279 --> 00:21:29.000 through clay and silt, and the banks on both sides 374 00:21:29.000 --> 00:21:32.960 were soft, good tracking surface, the kind that holds an 375 00:21:32.960 --> 00:21:37.359 impression cleanly. Jeanne was walking ahead of Bill, cutting line 376 00:21:37.359 --> 00:21:40.160 with a machete, and he stopped when he saw impressions 377 00:21:40.200 --> 00:21:43.839 in the mud. They were big, shaped roughly like a 378 00:21:43.920 --> 00:21:48.880 human foot heel ball toes, but much larger than any 379 00:21:48.960 --> 00:21:51.680 human foot he'd ever seen. He didn't have a tape 380 00:21:51.720 --> 00:21:54.279 measure on his hip at that moment. His chain and 381 00:21:54.319 --> 00:21:57.519 pins were in Bill's hands, so he eyeballed the length 382 00:21:57.519 --> 00:21:59.960 against his own boot, which was a size of level 383 00:22:00.400 --> 00:22:05.319 about twelve inches. The prints were significantly longer. He estimated 384 00:22:05.359 --> 00:22:08.680 sixteen to seventeen inches in his notes. There were four 385 00:22:08.720 --> 00:22:12.960 of them, two on each side, walking pattern coming down 386 00:22:13.000 --> 00:22:15.759 from the uphill side of the creek, crossing the mud, 387 00:22:16.039 --> 00:22:19.319 and continuing into the timber on the far bank. The 388 00:22:19.359 --> 00:22:23.000 stride was long, longer than his own by a wide margin. 389 00:22:23.799 --> 00:22:27.079 He and Bill looked at them. Bill said, somebody's been 390 00:22:27.119 --> 00:22:31.200 walking the creek. Gene nodded. They discussed it for maybe 391 00:22:31.200 --> 00:22:34.720 a minute. Who would be out here barefoot? Probably a local, 392 00:22:35.079 --> 00:22:36.559 maybe someone from a property to. 393 00:22:36.519 --> 00:22:39.599 The east, and moved on. That was it. 394 00:22:40.279 --> 00:22:43.039 They didn't photograph the prints, they didn't measure them with 395 00:22:43.079 --> 00:22:46.960 their chain. They noted them and kept working. Sixteen to 396 00:22:47.000 --> 00:22:50.640 seventeen inches in the same creek system, on the same 397 00:22:50.759 --> 00:22:54.440 valley floor where Karen would find nineteen inch prints seven 398 00:22:54.519 --> 00:22:58.960 years later, in essentially the same mud. Here's a detail 399 00:22:59.000 --> 00:23:02.559 I want you to catch. Jean's prince measured sixteen to 400 00:23:02.640 --> 00:23:07.599 seventeen inches, Karen's measured nineteen. Those aren't the same individual. 401 00:23:08.079 --> 00:23:11.599