Speaker 1: In southwest Ohio. One evening in two thousand and sixteen,
my buddy and I were fishing at a pond in
Sycamore State Park. We were downhill from a reservable shelter
where a wedding reception was being held, and we started
making our way back up the hill. When we made
it to the top, we looked over at the shelter
under the light. Something caught our attention and it made
a stop in our tracks. It was a nine foot
tall dark creature standing next to one of the trash cans.
It stared at us for a couple of seconds, and
then it turned around and walked into the brush line.
We ran to the car and sped out of there,
and we've never been back to that place. Hey, y'all,
welcome to the podcast. My name is Cam Buckner and
this is the Dixie Cryptid Podcast, also known as the
what If It's True? Podcast on any podcast app that
you have on your phone. By to it. Most of
December and the holiday season off. Hope you guys had
a great Christmas in New Year, by the way, But
I took that time off and just didn't do much
of nothing, and I am recharged and ready to get
back and get back at this podcast and everything else
I do during the day. Let's say we've got nine
stories in this podcast, because I owe it to you
been gone for about three weeks. The last story might
be the most interesting story in this podcast. It's about
thirty minutes long, and it is an email I got
from a federal game warden. Read the story, thought it
was interesting. He left his phone number, and I called
him and asked him about this story. Normally I don't
do that. I mean, it's like one out of a
thousand that I'll call when people send their phone number.
He give me a call if you want to talk
or whatever. I don't. I don't have time for that.
But I call this guy because the story was so
interesting and it kind of matched up with the missing
person's phenomenon. So he and I talked. Actually we've talked
a couple of times. He as a partner that he
worked with for years. He's retired now, but he as
a partner he's worked with for years and together they
have some amazing stories. He's written one more and he's
promised to send me a couple more, give me a
series of about four or five. So as I do them.
I'll make the thumbnail. It'll be a missing person's kind
of thumbnail, and you'll know that it's another one in
the series. And I'm including it with a bunch of
other stories. So you guys can all you people who
fall asleep can listen to this over and over and
snooze off while I read a story. Seems to be
a popular activity when my podcast has gone going on. Anyway,
thanks for joining me on this podcast. I'm ready to
get into it all right, here we go. My cousin's
husband was sitting next to me at dinner one night.
I knew he was an outdoorsman working on wildlife conservation projects,
so I turned to him and asked him about the
spotted owl project that he had been working on. His
entire demeanor changed, his skin paled and his hand trembled
as he reached for his glass. I saw them. You
know they're huge, he said, the owls I asked. He
shook his head and looked away. It was never about owls,
never about owls, he kept saying. Taking another drink, his
hands still trembling, and he dropped his voice and leaned
in and he whispered softly. It was about Sasquatching. It
was always about that beast. He quit talking now after that.
I was so taken aback by his response that I
didn't ask him anything else. Already believed in Sasquatch as
long as I could remember, and had so many questions
for him, but I kept them to myself. The way
he spoke about it to me, it pained him. His
body language was screaming trauma. I desperately wondered what happened
to him out there on his soul called a spotted
owl project, but I didn't dare to ask him. He
passed away now, and I never once doubted that he
was telling the truth. His demeanor that night was confirmation
enough to me that we had been deceived and there's
something in the woods they don't want us to know about.
Oh man, that is such a cryptic little email. You know,
there's not a lot of background, which I kind of
like those. I kind of like those stories where it
just tells the story. I think it's more impact Sometimes
the shorter stories are more impactful than the long drawn
out I'm a I'm a he man, mountain man kind
of stuff. But this was really good. So this guy's
out on this spotted owl project, which I think is
a is something that goes on in the Northwest. Well,
I don't think we have spotted owls where I live.
We do have some big old barn owls and other
kind of owls. I have them land up in my
pine trees out in front in my front yard in
the summertime, and I'll see one of them, a big one,
swoop up and land on a branch, and I walk
right up but underneath them, and look up at him
and take pictures of them, and they just kind of
look down at me. And when they're looking down at me,
it's kind of they are an amazing bird. But when
they look down at me, it's like, if you were
a little smaller, I think I'd eat you. That's the
vibe I get from an owl. And I have two
little dogs. I don't think they would eat my little dogs,
but they might anyway. I love owls. But he's out
there on his spottedt oul project and it's disguised as
a sasquatch project, and she was afraid to ever ask
him the question. Again. I kind of get that, you know,
when you get that kind of response from somebody that
doesn't talk much you just leave it alone and you
take it for what it's worth. Anyway, this was a
great story. I really appreciate the writer sending it. It
was so good. Thank you. I am an active duty
soldier stationed at Fort Stuart, Georgia. Earlier this year. My
unit was out on training for forty five days. In
that time, we trained day and night, and we slept
under the stars, sometimes in the woods and sometimes out
in open fields. On one night, we had just finished training,
five of us were huddled together watching the clouds drift
overhead as we talked about anything and everything. The planet
Venus was prominent in the night sky and the Moon
was sitting fairly low. We were able to make out
both of them through the clouds. As we admired the view,
large bright object appeared beneath the glow of Venus. None
of us could figure out what it was. It had
appeared out of nowhere and was sitting in front of
the clouds and was shining brighter than Venus. It wasn't
an aircraft because it wasn't moving or blinking. We got
lost in the conversation and again about one thing or another.
When one of our group pointed out that the light
had disappeared and then reappeared a full ninety degrees away.
All eyes were back on this light, and again it
wasn't moving. As we watched it, it started releasing a
ring of white smoke. It was circular at first, and
then it expanded into a sideway's heart shape. It was
big and loose at first, and then started to get
smaller somehow, and it became more defined until poof the
object and the shot out of sight. The strangest part
was that all of the clouds in the sky disappeared
in an instant, and all of the stars popped on
this massive canvas of black, as if a switch had
been flipped. The five of us looked at each other,
relieved we had seen the same thing, knowing anyone else
would have called us crazy and locked us up. The
next day, I couldn't stop thinking about it. At least
three other soldiers from different areas of our training site
saw it too. It was the strangest thing I had
ever seen, and I've never been able to explain it.
Oh what a cool story. Now that's a UFS That
is a UFO story. I've never heard smoke coming out
of the UFO making some kind of shape in the
sky and then boom, it's gone and all the clouds
are gone. Now that is weird. I love all this
UFO stuff, and it's actually become so the word popular.
There's a lot of information out on these things now
nobody still nobody knows what they are, but the so
that the just the light sightings become less interesting. Do
you know what I'm talking about? But these light sightings
are exciting to me because I think I've seen something like,
not this, but something lights in the sky. I've described
it before. I have no idea what it was. It
was probably all explainable, and you know, it was probably
just a natural thing, an aircraft or something like that.
But I've seen lights in the sky and the way
it makes you feel is like, oh man, that is
so cool to see something different like that. It seems
to be nothing like in movies, you know, do you
guys like the UFO type movies. Like one of my
favorite movies of all time is Close Encounters of the
Third Kind. That movie. I could watch it today and
it still takes me back to that time when I
was just in wonder an amazement at all the things
that could be it's the the UFO type, alien type
films that come out now. They're so I don't know,
they're just I don't know if it's the writers or
what it is. I just watched. We bought a subscription
to Apple TV, and I got to tell you, I
don't like anything by Apple. I don't like their phones,
I don't like their computers. Just logging in to your account,
your Apple account is a major pain. It's not like
anything else anyway. We subscribe to Apple TV to watch
a specific series. It was probably a year ago, maybe more,
and then I was going to cancel the subscription, but
I've kept it all this time, hoping they put something
good back up. Well, along comes this series called Pluribus
now Pluribus on Apple TV, A series created by a
man named Vince Gilligan who was the I guess he
was the creator of the was it the AMC or
FX series Breaking Bad? Which I thought was awesome. It
was a great series. It went on for years, so
I thought, oh man, this is going to be good.
And they really hyped it up to begin with. They
really hyped up ploribis well. I watched the first episode
one night. It was kind of late. My wife and
I watched it and we thought, oh, this is interesting.
Then we watched the next episode and it was pretty
much the same thing. And I got to the ninth
final episode and the story never changed. It was like,
there were things happening, obviously, but it was the same
kind of thing over and over and over again. It
was the I was so disappointed in that series. It
was like, is this thing? Is anything ever gonna happen?
So I don't recommend Ploribus. That's just me. I liked
stories that move. That was. Man, what a letdown for
this for that series Pluribus. We did, however, watch a
movie I think it was called The Astronaut. It was
an alien spaceship kind of movie and it moves really
fast and the ending was awesome. When it was over,
I turned to my wife and I said, now that
is a good movie. That was a good story. It
was a cool surprise ending. It was kind of a heartwarming.
You think it's a horror type story, but at the
end you're kind of relieved. Not that I like any
kind of particular ending, but it was just a perfect
appropriate ending that just made you go, oh wow, now
that was cool. So I recommend that. I can't. We
must have rented it on Prime or I can't remember
where it's showing. But if you can find a film
called The Astronaut, I think the thought Nail or the
Marquee for it as a woman inside, she's got a
like a space helmet on. Anyway, The Astronaut, it's really good. Okay,
enough you acting about UFO stuff. I just thought that
was interesting and it made me think about the horrible
series called Pluribus. If you liked plur of Us, make
a comment in the comment section below what you thought
about it. I thought it was horrible, horrible. Anyway, let
me know what you like. What do you like in
UFO type sci fi movies? Let me know this little story.
I don't remember when I got this. When you first
hear it, when the first when the story first starts,
you're not going to get it, but you'll get it
at the end. It seems to be just a piece
of fun writing, is what I would call it. It's
a sidesquat story, but I got a kick out of it,
so I thought you guys might like it. We'll do
this one before we get into our missing person's serious
Bigfoot story. I think it's a bigfoot story. You'll have
to decide anyway. Listen to this fun story. I had
been sort of depressed for several days after talking crow
adventure and almost getting eaten by a bear. I thought
things couldn't get much worse, but they did. We learned
that Aunt Myrtle and her snooty little daughters were returning
for another visit. We figured that after the dragon's scared,
they would never return, but we were wrong. The thought
of having to return to sleeping in the barn and
listening to their silly giggling made my Dame even more depressing.
The boys decided it was time for us to do
something so they would never want to come back. After
reading about a half animal and half human creature that
roam the woods in Oregon, we devised a plan that
was surely scared the snooty girl so bad that they
would never want to visit us again. The creature was
called sasquatch, stood about eight feet tall and was covered
in thick black hair. What seemed amazing was it walked
upright like a human. If we could create a creature
that resembled a sasquatch and scare the girls they would
never come visit again. Using a picture from a magazine
as a model, we made our sasquatch costume. We used
burlap sacks covered with some black moss for the body,
and an old cowskull made the perfect head. This costume
was really scary looking. Now we had to figure out
how to use it for the best results. When that
Myrtle and the girls arrived, we were all nice and polite,
and we carried their bags to their room and brought
some lemonade for refreshments. Grandma was so surprised at our
good manners she gave us a big smile, and Grandpa
was not fooled by our actions and cast a cynical look.
Our way suggested the girls should get out and enjoy
the fresh air and sunshine, and we would be happy
to show them the farm. Everyone thought this was a
swell idea, so we invited the girls to go doberry picking.
It was decided the following morning would be the ideal
time to pick berries. We found the perfect spot for
our sisquatch trick. It was sounded by thick bushes where
we could hide waiting the berry picking girls. Jake escoreded
the girls to the berry picking spot, while Reuben hid
in the nearby bushes wearing the sasquatch costume. I was
Reuben's assistant in case he needed any help. On their
way to the berry patch, Jake told the girls a
story about a wild man that roam the river bottoms nearby,
and he would occasionally be seen by folks. The girls
got scared and wanted to return to the house, but
Jake assured them that he would protect them if the
wild man was to appear. When the girls started picking dewberries,
they soon forgot about the wild man and started giggling
and talking their girl talk. Reuben waited a while before
walking out of the bushes wearing the wild man costume.
The girls didn't notice him at first, but after he
made a loud grunting sound, they saw him and they
screamed in terror. Now one might not think girls wearing
skirts and petticoats could run fast, but these girls raced
off through the woods like gus elves. One girl fell
down in a mud hole and was covered from head
to toe and gooey slime. The other tore her dress
on a thorn bush, lost a shoe, and even managed
to step in some bull nettles after a good long life.
We realized we might have gone too far with our
wildman trick and probably had some tall explaining to do
when we returned home. The story we finally decided on
was that our old black Shad and Gorara goat had
probably followed us to the berry patch, and this is
what the girls had seen. I don't think anyone believed
our story, but we were not punished. That same afternoon,
Aunt Myrtle and the girls left for home. Good riddance. Okay,
that's probably just a fun story, but it's a good story.
I hope you guys like that, and I appreciate the
writer taking time to do this. I don't know this
story could be true, but it's not necessarily a Bigfoot story.
It's a bigfoot hoak story, and it's a good one
at that. But anyway, thanks to the writer for sending it.
It was really really entertaining. Thanks. Okay, I think Rebecca
labeled this a Bigfoot story. I'm reading it cold. It's
a short, little story, but it looks kind of good.
One night in nineteen sixty nine, I got up to
get a glass of water in the kitchen. I saw
a huge auburn colored furry face looking at me through
the glass, and I screamed. My family laughed at me,
but I remember it clearly to this day. The round,
soulful eyes and the large head and the beautiful colors
stand out in my mind. Since that night, I have
experienced one strange thing after another. Animals of all kinds
come right up to me, and strange lights follow me home,
and objects in my house seem to move on their own.
My relatives think I'm crazy, and if it weren't for
my children, who have witnessed every event, I might think
I was losing my mind too. I still live in
the same area that I grew up in. At night,
when the motion lights flicker on and off, I hear
slaps at my bedroom window and strange howls from the woods. Personally,
I believe there are many things we humans don't understand.
I trust that my Lord is King, and I fear
nothing because he promised to protect me and mine. I
don't know why I was chosen to witness these strange things,
but I feel very blessed. Love your podcast. And she
signs off, and I know it's a she because of
her Uh, well, that could be a guy name. Anyway,
it's a great story. And that's exactly how I would
feel if I saw Bigfoot or I saw, you know,
one of these cryptids that didn't kill me or eat me.
But I would feel so lucky. And I can see
why people say it would change my life, change their lives,
because you know, to see something you've never seen, something
that you think could there's no way it could exist,
would be life changing. And it would. And what I
like about this story is, all of a sudden, I
the blue wild animals come up to her. I'm assuming
she means deer, and probably some of the other smaller
wildlife where she lives. But this was a great story.
It's a short one, but it was really good. Man.
There's a lot of gunpowder in these short stories, and
I love them. So you guys keep sending them. I
really appreciate it. Thank you to the writer. Okay, this
is a show enough Bigfoot story. I was raised in
the small town of Eldriche, Alabama. One night in the
summer of nineteen ninety, my family and I were watching
TV with the windows open. Out of nowhere, my father
jumped up and grabbed the remote and he shouted did
y'all hear that? My mother and I shrugged, and he
told us to wait and listen. We got up off
the couch and walked out the front door, and we
looked outside, right across from us as my grandfather's and
cousins trailer. As we looked toward their home, we saw
an eight foot tall bigfoot standing at my cousin's window,
staring at him as he slept. My dad got on
the phone and called my grandfather and told him what
was happening. And my grandfather grabbed U thirty thirty Winchester
rifle and walked quick but quietly to my cousin's bedroom.
When he opened the door, he caught the bigfoot reaching
in the window toward my little cousin. And when he
realized what he was looking at and what this big
brute was trying to do, we heard him yell out,
I don't think so, you stinking s hope. He opened
fire on it and shot it straight in the chest.
The bigfoot roared and hit the side of my grandfather's
trailer so hard that the force knocked it off its
brick foundation. And there we were in our home right
across from it, watching it all happen. My dad and
I were in protective mode at that point. We grabbed
our rifles and joined our grandfather outside and unloaded into
the beast. That thing roared and tore through the trees
like a D nine bulldozer. My mother called the police
while we checked on my cousin. He was unaware of
anything happening. The gunshots in the same room barely woke
him up. I swear that kid could sleep through a
raging hurricane. Betty was drunk. Thirty minutes later, two deputies
showed up and we told them what had happened. After
hearing everything, one of the deputies took us flashlight out
and shined it in our eyes and asked us where
the drugs were. I thought my grandfather and dad were
about to whoop his ass till the other deputy stepped in.
He told his partner to open his eyes and look
at the condition of the trailer. There was no man
who could cause that kind of damage to a mobile
home and knock it off its foundation. Then he pointed
his flashlight a few feet away and lit up a
massive track this beast had made. There were complete right
and left prints in the dirt, and then another right print.
Three steps. That's all it took for Bigfoot to reach
the woods. We measured the tracks and they were seventeen
inches long and six inches white. The deputy with common
sense said it looked like foot. He took the report
and took pictures, and right before he left, he looked
at us and said, I don't let nobody tell you
that was a bear, and then he left. We love
your show, and we've been listening for six years now.
It's okay to use my name. I know what I saw.
The writer's name is Elvis Man. What an action packed story.
I can't believe your cousin didn't wake up. That was crazy. Hey,
at least you had a deputy on your side and
nobody thought you were crazy. I love this story. It
seems really familiar to me. It's almost like I've done
it before. But I don't think. I'm thinking. Maybe sometimes
I read these and I've just read them before, I
hadn't really narrated them. I have so many to do that,
and I do so many of these stories that it's hard.
Sometimes it's hard to keep up with and when there
are duplicates, so if they are, I'm sorry, But it
does seem kind of familiar, but it's heck, it's worth
doing again. It's so good it's worth doing again. All Right,
thanks for the story, Elvis. All right, here's a story
about a ghost that I thought was fantastic. My experience
starts out like any other great adventure, a summer trip
to Silverwood Themed Park in North Idaho. I've been to
Silverwood many times, and I reserved a beautiful cabin there
for my birthday weekend, with a view of the lake
and the woods. My sister and I left the west
side of Washington State in the wee hours and we
made the five and a half hour road trip. We
had a great day checking out the park, and we
walked some easy trails and hung out near the lake,
and we toured the on site historic military museum. At
the museum, we were in the brig which displayed the
history and daily life of this World War II naval
training station, when I was overcome with a cold chill
and a sudden urge to leave later that night in
the cab, I went outside and walked a short distance
to the sheared bedroom. I was in a hurry and
eager to get back to the warm bunk in the cabin.
When I realized I was being watched, I stopped and
looked toward the restroom, and I got the same cold
chill as I had in the brig. Right in front
of me, it was a full body apparition of a
soldier wearing a dark button up uniform and a flat
style hat, holding a rifle over his left shoulder. He
was a bit out of focus and not totally solid.
I could not make out his facial features, and I
saw through him as if through a thick cloud of smoke.
I ran it full sprength the rest of the way
back to the bathroom, where I realized I was totally alone.
My cell had no signal. By this time, my sister
was fast asleep, and I knew that this thing was
still out there. After I got the nerve to exit
the outer house, it was even darker outside. I looked
around and I didn't see anything. Thinking I was just
being paranoid or that I was imagining this thing, I
headed back to the cabin, feeling a little bit dumb.
When I got to about the halfway mark, I heard
a large crack and a thud, the same sound of
branch makes as it snaps off a tree and hits
the ground. Straight ahead of me, I saw a figure again.
This time it was more defined, standing at the trailer head,
just inside the darker shadow of the night. This time
I wasn't afraid of him. I couldn't explain it. I
got the feeling that he was trying to protect me.
He was telling me that I was safe and that
he was there to watch over us. I wasn't as
afraid as before, but I was still shaking. After all,
I had just seen a ghost. I went back into
the cabin and I stayed awake the entire night. When
I woke my sister up the next morning, I had
already packed the car and I was ready to leave.
The front desk ladies reaction when I checked out that
morning still makes me wonder how often people leave this
place early. I walked in looking more than a little frazzled,
and I told her we wanted to check out early.
The woman took one look at me and asked very
hesitantly how our stay was, and I guess my facial
expression was all the answers she needed. Days later, I
noticed that a full refund for the stay had been
issued to me. Thank you for giving me an out
that to share this encounter. I've been enjoying your podcast
for a couple of years now, and I appreciate your
content and your comforting voice. Well you're welcome. Thank you
for listening. If it wasn't for you guys listening, I
might be doing a little bit of this. But I
it's all because you listen, that's the reason, and people
enjoy it. But this was a great story. She you know,
these stories are so believable to me. Some of them
are packed with a little bit of corny stuff, but man,
every story I've read in this podcast tonight has been
I don't know, everything rings true to me. I really
appreciate these things. So thank you for sending the story
as a great story. And I wonder how your life
changed and your outlook on life change after seeing this
apparition at that World War II naval facility. It's unbelievable, unbelievable,
a real ghost. Oh. I love these stories. Thank you
again to the writer. Last fall, six of my girlfriends
and I were on a self guided mule deer and
elk hunt. We are all ice hockey players from Minnesota
who have been friends since we were ten. Every year
since we graduated high school, we get together for a
hunting trip. Whether it's for Hoggs in Texas, Antelope on
the Plains, black bear in Canada. We used long bows,
compound bows, or rifles. This year, we decided to do
a second season rifle hunt in Colorado, so we packed
our ATVs in side by sides on our trailers and
took off into the mountains. We had reserved a site
through an outfitter named Scott, who we had gotten to
know over the past few years. We got to the
camp site three hours from the nearest road, and we
found that Scott had already set up a large outfitter's
tent and installed a wood burning stove for us and
stacked a cord of firewood in there with us. That
gave us extra time to do some scouting and find
what was lurking around nearby that we could harvest. That night,
we built a campfire and we sat around eating fried
maloney sandwiches. Wait a minute, where are you from? Who
else in this audience loves fried blowney sandwiches. I like
it about three eighths of an inch stick, a big
water slong on top of it, and some mustard on
a Hamburger. Vun just had to throw that in back
to the story. They were drinking red wine and catching
up on each other's lives. Now, I don't drink red
wine with my blowney sandwiches, but that doesn't matter. Late
at night, Brent grabbed her flashlight and her nine millimeter
and slipped outside to water the plants behind the tent.
The next morning, as we were getting ready to head
out in the early dark hours, she told us that
she heard something walking around just out of sight of
her light behind the tent. We decided to buddy up
in pairs and set out on our hunt. Lacy and
I hiked back along the ridge about two miles away,
where we could look down into a long meadow. The
entire time we were there, we felt that we were
being watched. The hair on the back of our necks
was standing on in. Occasionally hear twigs and sticks breaking nearby,
strange coyote howls, and exaggerated unnatural owl hoots. We stayed
within ten yards of each other all morning, taking turns
watching our six while the other watched the meadow. We
didn't see anything that day that we wanted to waste
a tag on, and When we started walking back to camp,
we heard something pacing us off to the right, just
out of sight. We both had our fingers on our safeties,
ready to turn our weapons loose if needed. We were
the last ones back at camp that night, and nobody
had filled a tag except Carly and Britt, who also
mentioned that they had felt like they were watched that night.
Britt insisted on standing guard, certain that something was out
there watching us. The next day, Lacey shot a ten
point mule deer. When we got back to the camp
to get our quad to drag it out, we saw
Britt and Carly getting their ATV ready to drag back
an olk that was unfortunate enough to cross of Brit
that morning. Once we had gutted Lacey's butt and corded
it out and loaded up our quad, we headed back
before the others got back. We had time to hang
the meat in nearby trees fifteen feet off the ground
to keep it out of each of the bears. It
was almost dark when Carly and Brit rolled in, but
they did not have an elk, which explained Britt's foul mood.
She was almost certifiably insane. She was ranting about killing
the thing that stole her bull elk, and insisting that
she would find some way to track him down. She
was so upset that the rest of us were afraid
of her and for her. After we had eaten the
backstraps from Lacey's deer and Brent had finished two bottles
of wine, we got her tucked into her sleeping bag
and took turns watching her over night. The next morning,
Lacy and I went along with Carly and Brett to
help find the missing bowl elk. We got to where
the elk had fallen, but there was nothing to indicate
that anyone or anything had been there and carried it off.
We scoured the area in all directions for three hundred yards,
finding not so much as a single drop of blood.
Brett accepted that the elk must have been alive, just unconscious,
and the wound must have clotted up. It must have
run off and died while she and Carly went to
fetch the ATV, which she felt horrible about. That evening,
the two Jessicas and Chelsea came back in with another
mule deer, and after getting it hung up, we broke
out a bottle of bourbon to go with the fresh
inner tenderloins and sang and carried on into the night.
The next morning, we discovered there was an entire rear
quarter missing that we had hung the night before. We
decided one of us should stay at the camp to
guard the rest of our meat while the others went hunting.
Jessica Ti drew the short straw and the rest of
us headed out. Luck was shining down on us because
Britt shot a beautiful bull elk that came in on
a string when she blew her bugle. Lacy and Chelsea
and I headed back to get the quads when we
heard a shot coming from the direction of the camp.
We picked up our pace, shouting as we got nearer
to jess so that she wouldn't shoot us. And when
we got there, one of the other rear quarters was
swinging from a rope. Jess was standing with her weapon pointed.
She began rattling about a massive bear like thing that
reached up for the meat, about to grab it, when
she shot and scared it off. Later, we started five
large campfires around the meat to ward off any predators
that may want to take advantage of an easy meal.
Brett offered to take over watch again, that night and
the rest of us went to bed. At four am,
she started waking us up, saying she had seen something
moving in the shadows around the lit area of the meat.
We slid out of our sleeping bags, grabbed our rifles,
and looked through the tent opening. The campfire still provided
enough light that we could see the shadows from the
other side of the tent. A few minutes later, an
awful smell overwhelmed the camp. I wish I could have
bottled that smell and sprayed it on some other hockey
teams equipment years ago. We were motionless, gazing out the
slit of the tent flap, waiting for that bear to
pop out. We did not have a bear tag, but
this troublemaker was going down. All of a sudden, something
moved along the side of our tent. We could see
the top of the tent being pressed down, as if
something were testing the consistency of the material. It slowly
moved toward the open in front. When we could see
the shadow of this creature standing on two legs and
heading toward the fires in the meat. This was no bear.
It was human like, standing taller than the top of
the tent. Which must have been over seven feet tall,
leaving its shoulders at least that high. The thickness of
this monster was wider than a hockey goal. Two shots
rang out. Britton Lacey both fired through the tent towards
the creature. The swiftness of this thing's escape was unimaginable.
It took off across the open area directly in front
of the tent, where three more shots rang out. Seconds later,
we were all out of the tent looking for blood,
and we found some, but not in the quantities that
one might expect. Just a few minutes later, roarers sounded
all around our camp. We grabbed our gear, cut down
our meat, and loaded up the eight ten, strapping the
heads and meat down so they wouldn't fall off, and
leaving one of the rear quarters from the elk hanging
in the tree, hoping that the creature would be happy
with the offering and leave us alone. More roars and
screams broke the darkness, and trees and limbs and rocks
started to rain down on the tent, smashing into the ground.
We decided to make tracks and get our butts back
to Minnesota. That was less than twenty minutes before the
sun started to come up, and we were hauling ass
down the trail, with Chelsea and Jess watching our six
and occasionally firing off a couple of rounds to discourage
any pursuit if they saw something suspicious. During all this time,
we could hear something crashing through the woods on both
sides of us. As the sun rose and the visibility improved,
we were able to open the throttle and increase our speed,
and we began to outpace whatever was pursuing us to
ours later and back in our trucks. We loaded and
made our way home in one piece, with the story
that would brand us crazier than loons. I would like
you to envision the people's faces when we stopped to
fill up or grab something to eat, and those three
heads were strapped to our side by sides. The remark
of the day was, you girls must be proud of
your men for taking such a nice animals. We let
Britt set them straight. We did call Scott and ask
him why he would put us in a location where
a family of Bigfoot was living. When he went back
with several of his guides, they found the camp was
destroyed with the cast iron campso smashed into the ground,
leaving nothing more than scrap metal. Parts of the tent
were hanging in the trees thirty feet off the ground,
and coolers were smashed, and the rear quarter was still
hanging in the tree. We've got decided to close that
area for the near future and move his clients to
other locations for a third rifle season. On our next time,
we would do something a bit less dangerous, like gator
hunting or hog hunting with spears. With all our love,
and she signs off the seven she devils. I tell
you what that is, seven she devils. Those girls are
tougher nails. I mean they're going out by themselves and
hunting elk and hogs and gaiters, and I guess they
just love the outdoors and love to have fun. I
thought this was a great story. It's a terrifying story.
I'm sure they were scared, but they had enough sense
to protect themselves. A couple of them got pissed off
at these things, and I don't know. I think if
they had their choice, they may have stayed and fought
them out. Who knows, but this was a great story.
You girls are You're more man than me and my book.
How about that? Thanks for the story, she devils? Okay.
Here is the letter from the Federal Game Warden the story.
The events in this story apparently happened back in the
early nineteen eighties. He doesn't give a timeline here, and
he doesn't give a specific location. I think he's trying
to be cryptic with us with this information because I
don't know. Maybe it's a big secret. But let's see.
Here's the story. It's really good. The day after Christmas,
two college students launched their john boat into an ox
bow of the Mississippi River. Ice crack when the trailer
entered the water, but it was only a thin sheet
and it would be clear when the sun warmed the
water's surface. They had hunted since the season opened and
had mostly good days, many days killing their limit of millards.
The Halliday break meant they only had another week to
get after the migrating birds, and then it was back
to school, two hundred miles from the flyway. The next season,
being a year away, seemed like an eternity. They were
planning to hunt every day until they had to return
to campus. It was probably an exciting morning. The migration
was in full swing. Birds were in the area and
holding due to the food available. All indications were that
their twenty five horsepower mercury started without problems. It was
only in its second year of use. It was new
and well maintained, and an outboard they had bought new
together for a john boat they had picked up and
fixed up from the want eds of the commercial appeal.
The hunters were experienced with sometimes wild waters and weather
of the Lower Mississippi base and during winter. From interviews
later with family and friends, the two hunters practiced good safety.
They didn't take chances. Life jackets were worn in the
boat until they had stopped tip waiters would put on
only before they entered the water that didn't travel over
the water. In those everyone knew the stories of hunters
who had drowned after being dragged under with full waiters.
The boat was always apparently left secured whenever they left
the boat, and it was within walking distance in case
they needed to get out fast. They did everything they
knew to stay alive in an environment that, with any mishap,
would kill you in minutes. Yet the young enthusiastic duck
hunters left the ramp in the dark of that morning
and they have never been heard from since. From nineteen
seventy five until nineteen ninety five, I worked for the
US Department of the Interior the US Fish and Wildlife
Services as a federal game warden. My assignment through the
winter was to patrol a specific wildlife refuge in the Delta.
At this time, I reported to the refuge manager. He
was my superior. I later became a refuge manager and
then as zone manager, but that is another story. I
was from the area. I had grown up hunting and
fishing on this refuge, and I knew many of the residents,
so the role I played during the years that I
was assigned there came natural to me. I was in
my second year there, and I like to think that
I escorted the trash out the door and made an
impact for conservation. It was never a dull day. There
were stints where we were assigned to varying task forces
with the DEA, the ATF, and even the FBI to
deal with organized crime operations running drugs and weapons through
the lowland areas that might include the refuge where I
was assigned. It was dangerous work and we were not
paid enough for the level of risk. We took while
dealing with those crimes, but it was one of the
exciting eras of the time that I served. When I
heard the radio chatter of the two college boys who
had not returned that night. I was heading out of
the refuge on a rutted logging road that I frequently
used because it gave me access to launch my boat
into several areas. I stopped the truck when my four
wheel drive crawled up on some solid ground, and I
killed the engine and listened to the radio from the
county Sheriff's department. It had been dark for an hour.
A deputy had been dispatched to a boat ramp several
miles north and was to meet the father of one
of the boys and investigate the situation. I got the
whole story of the boys being due home by two
or three that afternoon, and it was now dark and
they hadn't shown up. Their car was still at the
ramp with the trailer attached. They had left that morning,
and they should have been back. Damn right, they should
have been back. I knew this story like I had
written it a thousand times. I had not had the
experience of finding drowned duck hunters, with this being my
only second year on the job, but I knew the
stories from growing up in the area. But over my career, however,
I would be involved in several SAARs search and rescue missions.
It's not a exciting or fulfilling part of my job.
It is an urgent and stressful part of my job.
When we get these calls, a mood of hopelessness overtakes
the searchers because it is rare that we find anyone
alive after a night in the freezing flooded timber. The
ramp where they had launched was north of my refuge.
The hunters had not told anyone where they planned to
hunt that day. According to relatives, they never shared that information.
Often the boys would move once or twice each day,
so no one could verify where the boys would plan
to hunt, if there even was a plan. But my
guess was that they had traveled south in this direction,
if not directly into the refuge. It would have been
easy to get in with the high water. The refuge
was covered up with ducks and the area was busy
with boat traffic. I had checked eight hunting parties before
shooting time was over that day. I had a hunch,
so I drove one hundred yards to the gravel parking
area and turned my rig around and went back into
the flooded area that I had patrolled that day. On
the way, I radioed the sheriff's dispatcher that I was
in the area and would begin a search of the refuge.
The years of experience, I guess I knew they were
out there somewhere, dead or alive, and if they were alive,
the sooner someone got to them, the better their chances
penning they had not drowned. I radioed the refuge manager
and told him what I was up to, and gave
him the general area that I would search, which was
vague because I would be constantly moving. If for some
reason I didn't show up or radio in that I
had stopped searching, they would know where to start looking
for me. After reaching the furthest point south where I
could not go further with my truck, I backed the
boat into the shallow ditch and began slowly working my
way south into bigger water through the flooded timber, hoping
to find the boys shivering in the cold, their motor
not functioning properly. Maybe it was nine fifteen pm, the
temperature had dropped a freezing and a light, misty rain
began to fall. I idled slowly for hours until I
had just enough gas to get back to my truck.
I heard over the radio that a search had started
with a dozen boats, State Game and Fish law enforcement,
and a couple of civilians friends of the family. The
Coastguard would join the next morning with a helicopter that
was being flown in from Memphis for the search the
next morning. If the boys had not been found, The
saar was random. The first night, boats were going where
they thought the boys might have hunted that day. The
next day would be different. More boats would be involved
in the search areas would be a sign, and if
those boys were in a reasonable travel distance for a
john boat from the boat ramp, someone would find them.
More than likely the helicopter crew would spot the boat
with two cold men waving at them. I hoped that
would be the case. I worked my way back to
the truck through a different part of the refuge, an
area much thicker would brush than where most hunters went.
I didn't move as slow as I was going south,
but I kept my light shining all around me. I
wished I had seen them when the bow ran up
on the bank next to my trailer, but again I
knew they could have been anywhere. After letting my supervisor
know that I was calling it a night and reporting
to him the area that I had covered, I loaded
my boat and I left. It was two thirty a m.
At six am, later than normal, and I showered and dressed,
and then called in to get an update. Several groups
had searched all night and came up empty. The searcher
was growing and spreading out, and the more people were
showing up to volunteer in search where they were needed.
I called the sheriff in the county north of US
and asked if I was needed. He didn't think so,
but since I was going to be patrolling the refuge anyway,
he wanted me to keep my eye out. Well, no kidding,
I thought. I stopped at the gas station and filled
my gas tanks I put in at the busiest ramp
on the refuge. There I checked a party of hunters
who were getting a late start. After that, I headed
south to my refuge, following the main channel. On each
side of me as I travel were the lazy hunters
who set up close to the channel. I could see
their decoy spreads and the blinds they had thrown up
and claimed with each stop. I pulled close and asked
the hunters to look out for the missing boys. The
water was high and a man could just about go
anywhere in the refuge with a boat. I broke from
the channel and followed a ditch until it opened up
into a natural lake, and I trimmed the motor and
I laid the boat flat on the water and headed
at full throttle to the other end, where there were
openings in the timber that hunters liked to use. It
took some work to get to these places, and that
is why I thought the two men may have gone
into the area to get away from the crowd. I
knew where the shooting holes were, and I headed to
the closest one. A boat with a pullover blind sat
back in a patch of buck brush. I approached the boat,
and three heads poked above the blind. Hey, mister game warden,
I heard a voice say, as you luck, Ben, I asked,
we have a few in the boat here. You want
to look at them now? Not today. There's some fellows
that put in north of here, yesterday. That didn't show
up last night at the rain. There's a big search
going on. Have you seen anything or anyone back in here? Yeah,
we heard about that. They said, you think they could
be this far away from where they put in maybe?
I said, have you seen or heard anything? Uh? There
was some shooting back in the woods yesterday. Two of
the men pointed to a place deeper in the timber.
They were tearing the ducks up. It sounded like we
left right at dark. We never saw them come out.
They could have come in another way, but who knows.
But I don't know any other way to get in here. Well,
I doubt that helps you. Oh it helps, I said,
keep your eyes open and give them a hand if
you see them. There're two college kids. Sure will, they said,
and I waved and motored off in my boat. I
headed further into the trees. Unless they were hunting from
the bank, this was the only way into the area.
It was worth taking a look. Thirty minutes later I
came to an opening surrounded by cypress trees. I had
actually fished this lake when I was a kid during
the spring and summer. This was the most beautiful area
on the refuge and any chance I got to go
into the area I went. It was a peaceful place
to me, and it brought memories to the surface of
my father and I filling a cooler with fish. Soon
decoys came into view on the far side, half the
decoys in the open water and the other half up
in the trees. I motored up to them and I
killed my motor it went in there, I yelled out.
I didn't see a boat or any sort of blind
just decoys and no hunters. The front that I had
experienced last night had moved through. Now it was cold
and clear. The wind was whipping and singing through the
cypress and oak limbs. I moved through the decoys into
the trees, looking for whoever it had set this spread up.
The farther I went, the more I again to think.
These hunters had left their spread out so they wouldn't
have to spend time setting up when they came back
in the next day. And this was against the rules.
Hunters were to leave the area they hunted just as
they had found it at the end of the day.
During that time, hunters were allowed a fixed number of decoys,
and they were to be removed each day. I was
about to circle around and head back out into open
water when I saw the boat. I was one hundred
and fifty yards past the decoys and fifty yards from
dry land, and the boat appeared to be on the bank.
Something was off about the scene. Though the boat was
bent in half, it was almost doubled over. I pulled
up to the bank and walked to what was left
of the boat, which still sat in a foot of water.
I backed away and raised my radio to call my boss,
but he didn't respond. I walked closer to make sure
I was seeing what I thought I was seeing, and
I raised the radio again and couldn't reached my refuge manager.
I switched to the channel of the Sheriff's office and
I got their dispatcher. I read the boat registration numbers
to the sheriff and he verified that this was the boat.
He knew where I was, but it would take two
maybe three hours to get someone out there, and could
I stay with the boat. Well, of course I could
stay with the boat, I told him. I walked back
to my boat and sat on the bow. I wasn't tired,
but in another way I was exhausted. Maybe I just
needed to prepare my mind for what I would see
when I walked back to the boat. It just didn't
seem real to me at that point. To be honest,
I was expecting to find these boys drowned in the
water somewhere. Federal game wardens are trained as well, if
not more so, on law enforcement tactics, rules, and crime
scene procedures. We get the same training that the ATF
DEAFBI agents get. We know how to handle and conduct
ourselves on a crime scene. In my boat, I carried
a rucksack with several items that I need to do
my job, crime scene tools, a change of clothes, amos, etc.
This was an age before digital cameras, and I kept
a disposable Kodak camera in my bag. The camera had
twenty four exposures and I burned up every one of
them on the scene. I never got close enough to
disturb anything around the boat, but I took pictures from
every angle and I got images of giant tracks that
seemed to be everywhere. I placed the disposable camera back
into my rucksack and I waited, somewhat aware of my
surroundings in case there was an aggressive animal still in
the area, maybe even protecting its kill, and somewhat still
in a bit of shock at what I had found.
I don't know why I assumed it was an animal,
but those tracks led me to believe that something had
attacked these boys. I sat on the front of the
boat for a few more minutes, getting my bearings and
clearing my head. There wasn't much for me to do
at this point, and I should have stayed put and
waited for whoever was coming. But I can never sit
still now. I'm glad that no one was around. It
allowed me to take in the scene and try to
imagine what had happened here. It was almost peaceful had
I not been conscious that something had killed these men
in the last few hours, and it could have still
been close. Still, I'm assuming it's an animal. I knew
that from the tracks around the boat and the tracks
that I can make out heading up the bank into
the trees. I looked for drag marks, like something had
dragged the two bodies through the mud, but there was
nothing but a single set of deep, barefoot tracks. They
were huge tracks. I knew what it was, but I
would not allow my mind to accept it. There had
to be an explanation other than what I was thinking.
But to prove all this, I had to find the bodies,
and I hoped, like hell I would find the boys alive.
I carried a Rugrimny fourteen ranch rifle in the boat.
I took it out of its cover. With the rifle
in my side arm, I walked into the trees and
felt confident that if whatever this was came at me,
I would have enough firepower to stop it. There was
an open lane through the trees twenty five feet up
the bank that ran parallel with the tracks that led
into the tall stand of trees and brush. My tracks
would not disturb the path of the alleged killer. I
entered the tree slowly, looking for anything that moved or jumped.
A few steps later, I made a three hundred and
sixty degree survey of everything. I could no longer see
the water. The trees opened into a clear stand and
I could see one hundred yards in every direction. I
made a course, changed and walked toward where I thought
the tracks from the wrecked boat would intersect my path.
I heard a helicopter approaching, and I stopped and looked up,
waiting for it to peer somewhere over me. I remember
looking into the sun, and it's the last thing I
remember about that day. A woman in a uniform handed
a cup of coffee to me. She was talking to me,
I think, telling me that I could find sugar and
all that stuff from my coffee just around the corner.
Things were not hazy or foggy. In my mind, I
knew where I was, but I had no recollection of
how I got there. I kept my composure while wanting
to ask how the hell did I get here? Where's
the team that was on its way to the scene.
Had I passed out? I looked down at my boots
and they were clean or not as muddy as I
had gotten them in the woods, and I had on
my second pair of boots was clean. Apparently I had changed.
None of this seemed right. I kept my mouth shut
and acted normal, like I knew exactly where I was
and why I was there. The Sheriff's office was just
down the hall, and I could see him sitting at
his desk talking on the phone. I walked to the
door and got there when he was ending his call.
You have everything you need from me, I asked, I
thought you left. He said, yeah, I don't need anything
else from you. Dan sent over your report. It's the
hell the thing, isn't it. I left the building and
found my truck. My keys were in the pocket where
I always dropped them at home. My report lay in
the middle of my desk. I checked the fax machine
log and I had sent a fax that morning to
my supervisor. I had been on the water that morning
looking for missing duck hunters. I looked at my watch
and it was the next day, December twenty eighth. I
walked outside and my boat was where I kept it.
And then I turned back to my truck in the
driveway and opened the door, and my rucksack and my
rifle were neatly laid on the passenger floorboard, exactly where
I kept them. It's like I had come home after
finding the damaged boat and gone through my regular routine.
My wet, muddy boots were under the car port, and
dirty clothes were in the hamper. I even pulled the
towel from the hamper and found that it was still
damp for me drying off from a shower that morning.
Everything in the house was like it was supposed to be,
just as normal as ever. There was plenty of daylight left,
and the weather was good. I headed to the refuge,
and soon I was on the water and at the
place where I found the boat. The boat was not there,
neither were the decoys I had seen that the boys
had been hunting over on the bank. There were no
tracks other than human boot tracks. Looked like I heard
people had been walking up and down that pathway. Well.
I followed those tracks and they ended where I think
my memory of the day before ended. From there, I
followed my own tracks that ran parallel with the water,
and then I turned back toward the water until I
arrived at the bank again, water slapping the transom of
my boat. I stared at it, tilting with each riple,
trying to figure out what was going on. On my
way back across the lake, I ran into a search
team with the Coastguard. They talked about the search and
that had been focused now on my refuge, which made sense.
We had found their boat here, there was no reason
to search other areas, but no college boys or bodies
of college boys had been found. Later that evening, at
my desk, I read the report that I had signed.
It was not what I had seen when I discovered
that boat. There were no mention of animal tracks around
the boat. My description of the boat was that the
boys have hit something while moving fast to do that
much damage. A week later, of visit to the yard
where the County Sheriff's Department kept impounded vehicles, and I
looked at the boat the day I found it. It
looked like a huge weight had been dropped into the
middle of it, and it had folded in two, almost
like a folded piece of cardboard. But the boat I saw,
and I checked the numbers, it was the boat had
been folded back. For lack of a better way to
describe it, there was a lot of damage, but it
was flat and it still looked like a boat. Nevertheless,
I had no doubt that this report was mine. I
knew that from the way I write, and there was
no doubt it was my signature. After a week, there
was no reason to dedicate state and federal resources on
a search that everyone knew would not turn up anything.
Two shotguns had been dragged from the bottom of the
lake close to where the boat was found, but they
were in such bad shape that it was determined the
guns had not belonged to the missing boys and had
been in the water for probably years. Maybe lost overboard
by careless hunters. It was into July when I finally
stopped looking around the area for those boys while still
doing my regular job, And when the days got longer,
I would go back into that area and search the
water some days and walked the dry island on other days.
But I never found anything. By the time it had
been full on summer heat for three months, anything remaining
would be progressively harder to find. It was a month
after the incident that I remembered I had a disposable Kodak.
While digging in my bag for something else, I had
the images developed at a one hour photo shop. While waiting,
the images were blurred or completely black. Of twenty four exposures,
not a single one turned out. We are decades away
from that strange holiday season. Those kids are still missing.
If they died in my refuge, and what I mean
is if they drowned or died of hypothermia, either I
or someone would have found them. I think I lost
almost twenty four hours of my memory. I still don't
know anything of my activities during that time. I must
have driven myself home. It's obvious that I wrote the
report that I showered that I changed clothes and even
slept in my bed. I never changed my report or
even told anyone about the twenty four hours that I
cannot remember, other than one wildlife officer that was years
later after a few beers. He is an officer I've
known for thirty years and we work federal refuges in
the same region. Now, these are lowland delta areas that
are forgotten by the quote missing persons experts. They like
to report on the popular stories and popular areas of wilderness.
The lost time event has never happened to me since
those early days of my career. But between the two
of us, we have stories to tell you that have
flown under the radar of the people who investigate missing
persons cases. Thank you for listening this far. I know
this was a long podcast, but I thought every story
in this set was really good. I really hope you
guys enjoyed it and you can look forward to more
frequent stories, more frequent podcasts being uploaded weekly. Back on track,
I appreciate you hanging with me. Let's see you guys
on the next one. Thank you