WEBVTT 1 00:00:02.520 --> 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 --> 00:00:48.399 and let's head off into the woods if you dare. 13 00:01:02.600 --> 00:01:05.359 If you're coming into this cold, do yourself a favor 14 00:01:05.400 --> 00:01:09.200 and go back to the beginning. Everything in this series connects. 15 00:01:09.719 --> 00:01:12.000 The encounters stack on each other in a way that 16 00:01:12.079 --> 00:01:15.040 only makes sense if you've heard the full progression, and 17 00:01:15.120 --> 00:01:18.040 what Garrett's about to describe won't carry its real weight 18 00:01:18.159 --> 00:01:20.599 unless you understand what he'd already been through by the 19 00:01:20.599 --> 00:01:25.480 time it happened. Here's the short version for context over 20 00:01:25.519 --> 00:01:29.319 the previous two years Garrett had experienced escalating contact with 21 00:01:29.359 --> 00:01:32.760 something on his remote mountain property in western North Carolina. 22 00:01:33.599 --> 00:01:37.920 Wood knocking from the ridge, seventeen inch bipedal tracks, a 23 00:01:38.040 --> 00:01:41.799 visual sighting at the meadow's edge, the systematic harvesting of 24 00:01:41.799 --> 00:01:44.799 his garden by a creature that defeated every countermeasure He 25 00:01:44.879 --> 00:01:48.560 set up, a trail camera image of an enormous hand, 26 00:01:49.319 --> 00:01:52.079 his brother's voice replicated and used to lure him into 27 00:01:52.079 --> 00:01:56.560 a ravine, and most recently fresh snow, revealing that something 28 00:01:56.599 --> 00:02:00.359 had been circling his cabin nightly, pausing at his bedroom window, 29 00:02:00.799 --> 00:02:04.000 pressing its hands against the walls and watching him sleep. 30 00:02:04.840 --> 00:02:08.199 Each encounter pushed the boundary a little further. Each one 31 00:02:08.280 --> 00:02:11.080 revealed something new about what the creature was capable of 32 00:02:11.479 --> 00:02:15.000 and how closely it had been observing Garrett's life, And 33 00:02:15.080 --> 00:02:17.719 throughout all of it, there'd been a thread running underneath 34 00:02:17.719 --> 00:02:20.919 the surface that Garrett hadn't pulled on yet, a thread 35 00:02:20.960 --> 00:02:23.439 that led back to Earle, the man who'd built the 36 00:02:23.479 --> 00:02:26.439 cabin and lived on that land for four decades, And 37 00:02:26.520 --> 00:02:29.000 the things Earle had said that didn't seem to mean 38 00:02:29.120 --> 00:02:32.080 much at the time, but kept gaining significance with every 39 00:02:32.120 --> 00:02:35.400 passing month. One of those things was a warning about 40 00:02:35.400 --> 00:02:38.680 a bluff. Here's what Garrett wrote. I want to go 41 00:02:38.719 --> 00:02:41.919 back to my first afternoon on the property, the day 42 00:02:41.960 --> 00:02:44.960 I met Earle, because something he said that day planted 43 00:02:44.960 --> 00:02:47.719 a seed I didn't recognize as a seed until it 44 00:02:47.759 --> 00:02:51.199 had already grown roots. We'd been sitting on the porch 45 00:02:51.240 --> 00:02:53.840 for a couple of hours by that point. He told 46 00:02:53.879 --> 00:02:56.599 me about building the cabin with Frank. He told me 47 00:02:56.639 --> 00:02:59.400 about Riba and her zenias, and the bird songs she 48 00:02:59.400 --> 00:03:02.759 could identify from the kitchen sink. He told me about 49 00:03:02.759 --> 00:03:04.800 the well and the creek and the spring that never 50 00:03:04.879 --> 00:03:07.639 dried up. And somewhere in the middle of all that, 51 00:03:08.080 --> 00:03:10.520 during a pause where he was looking out at the ridge, 52 00:03:10.759 --> 00:03:13.280 he pointed northeast toward a spot I could barely make 53 00:03:13.319 --> 00:03:16.719 out through the trees. See that ledge up there where 54 00:03:16.719 --> 00:03:20.879 the rock sticks out above the timber. I squinted about 55 00:03:20.879 --> 00:03:23.319 half a mile up the slope, maybe a little more. 56 00:03:23.840 --> 00:03:26.439 There was a rocky shelf that jutted from the ridge line, 57 00:03:27.039 --> 00:03:31.759 gray stone, angular, partially covered in lichen. It rose above 58 00:03:31.800 --> 00:03:35.560 the surrounding canopy by maybe twenty or thirty feet from 59 00:03:35.560 --> 00:03:38.080 the porch. It looked like a fist pushing up through 60 00:03:38.120 --> 00:03:41.560 the trees. Frank used to hunt from up there, Earle said, 61 00:03:42.199 --> 00:03:44.919 fall mornings, he'd climb up before dawn and sit on 62 00:03:44.960 --> 00:03:47.120 the edge with his rifle across his knees and wait 63 00:03:47.159 --> 00:03:52.000 for deer. Said, you could see three counties from the top, Burke, McDowell, 64 00:03:52.039 --> 00:03:54.520 and a sliver of Rutherford. If the haze wasn't too bad, 65 00:03:55.280 --> 00:04:00.560 good spot. Then his expression changed. It was subtle, tightening 66 00:04:00.599 --> 00:04:04.080 around the eyes, a slight drop in his jaw, like 67 00:04:04.120 --> 00:04:06.360 he was about to say something he'd been debating whether 68 00:04:06.400 --> 00:04:09.360 to say. And in that voice he used for things 69 00:04:09.439 --> 00:04:13.240 that mattered, the flat, quiet register that stripped away inflection 70 00:04:13.599 --> 00:04:17.399 and left only the words themselves. He said, don't go 71 00:04:17.519 --> 00:04:19.839 up there after dark. There's no good reason to be 72 00:04:19.879 --> 00:04:23.639 on that bluff after sundown. I waited for an explanation. 73 00:04:24.240 --> 00:04:27.319 None came. He picked up his coffee cup and took 74 00:04:27.319 --> 00:04:30.439 a slow sip and looked away, and the moment passed. 75 00:04:31.319 --> 00:04:33.759 We moved on to talking about the property boundaries and 76 00:04:33.800 --> 00:04:36.279 the price, and I filed his warning in the back 77 00:04:36.319 --> 00:04:39.160 of my mind alongside the other cryptic things he'd said. 78 00:04:40.079 --> 00:04:43.279 The mountains got its own rhythm Reba's garden wasn't worth 79 00:04:43.279 --> 00:04:46.879 the trouble. Don't go to the bluff after dark. I 80 00:04:46.879 --> 00:04:49.079 didn't think about the bluff much during my first two 81 00:04:49.160 --> 00:04:52.120 years on the property. I had enough happening at lower 82 00:04:52.160 --> 00:04:57.120 elevations to keep me occupied. The knocking, the garden, the mimicry, 83 00:04:57.600 --> 00:05:01.079 the snow tracks. All of it took within the immediate 84 00:05:01.120 --> 00:05:04.399 vicinity of the cabin, within the first couple hundred yards 85 00:05:04.439 --> 00:05:07.519 of the meadow and the tree line. The bluff was 86 00:05:07.560 --> 00:05:09.920 half a mile away and six or seven hundred feet 87 00:05:10.000 --> 00:05:13.079 higher in elevation up on the ridge line and terrain. 88 00:05:13.439 --> 00:05:17.079 I rarely visited. It existed at the edge of my awareness, 89 00:05:17.120 --> 00:05:20.040 the way a locked room exists in a house. You 90 00:05:20.120 --> 00:05:23.480 know it's there, you know it's probably fine, you just 91 00:05:23.519 --> 00:05:26.959 don't have a reason to open the door. That changed 92 00:05:27.000 --> 00:05:30.560 in the spring of twenty sixteen. The winter had been long. 93 00:05:31.360 --> 00:05:34.519 After the snow tracks in January, I'd spent the remaining 94 00:05:34.560 --> 00:05:37.519 cold months in a state of heightened awareness that was 95 00:05:37.560 --> 00:05:42.279 exhausting to maintain. I slept light, I checked the perimeter 96 00:05:42.360 --> 00:05:45.120 of the cabin every morning, walking the full circuit, the 97 00:05:45.120 --> 00:05:47.279 way I used to check a job site before the 98 00:05:47.319 --> 00:05:50.800 crew arrived, scanning the ground for evidence, looking at the 99 00:05:50.800 --> 00:05:54.519 windows for smudges, studying the log walls for new marks. 100 00:05:55.279 --> 00:05:59.319 I kept the spiral notebook updated with every observation, every sound, 101 00:05:59.680 --> 00:06:02.279 every feeling of being watched that I couldn't attach to 102 00:06:02.319 --> 00:06:06.079 a specific stimulus. The knocking had been quiet since the 103 00:06:06.199 --> 00:06:08.680 night of the strikes that shattered the oak bark, and 104 00:06:08.759 --> 00:06:12.600 by March it still hadn't resumed. The mountain was silent 105 00:06:12.720 --> 00:06:15.680 in a way that felt deliberate, like a conversation that 106 00:06:15.720 --> 00:06:19.360 had been paused mid sentence. But after the snow tracks, 107 00:06:19.560 --> 00:06:23.199 I understood that silence differently. The creatures hadn't left for 108 00:06:23.240 --> 00:06:27.439 the winter. They just stopped making noise. The knocking, the 109 00:06:27.480 --> 00:06:30.920 garden visits, the mimicry, Those were the part of the 110 00:06:30.959 --> 00:06:34.920 activity that was above the water line, below it invisible 111 00:06:34.959 --> 00:06:38.360 without the freak recording medium of nine inches of fresh snow, 112 00:06:38.600 --> 00:06:42.399 The physical visits had continued. They'd been circling my cabin, 113 00:06:42.839 --> 00:06:46.319 standing at my windows, pressing their hands to my walls, 114 00:06:46.920 --> 00:06:50.360 and doing it all without a sound. That knowledge sat 115 00:06:50.360 --> 00:06:53.480 with me through the remaining cold months and into the spring. 116 00:06:54.240 --> 00:06:59.720 It colored everything, every quiet evening, every uneventful night, every morning. 117 00:06:59.759 --> 00:07:02.439 When I stepped onto the porch and saw nothing unusual, 118 00:07:02.920 --> 00:07:07.199 I understood that nothing unusual didn't mean nothing happening. It 119 00:07:07.279 --> 00:07:11.240 meant the happening was invisible. The absence of evidence wasn't 120 00:07:11.240 --> 00:07:15.959 evidence of absence, It was evidence of competence. Cliff checked 121 00:07:15.959 --> 00:07:18.920 in on me weekly. He'd call on Sunday evenings, and 122 00:07:18.959 --> 00:07:21.439 we'd talked for twenty or thirty minutes, and he'd ask 123 00:07:21.519 --> 00:07:26.319 the same question every time anything new. Most weeks the 124 00:07:26.399 --> 00:07:30.360 answer was no. The creature or creatures had pulled back. 125 00:07:31.160 --> 00:07:34.199 Whether that was seasonal behavior, a response to the snow, 126 00:07:34.279 --> 00:07:38.959 revealing their routine, or something else entirely, I couldn't tell. 127 00:07:39.000 --> 00:07:42.079 But the contact had stopped, and the silence that replaced 128 00:07:42.079 --> 00:07:44.199 it was both a relief and a source of low 129 00:07:44.240 --> 00:07:47.720 grade anxiety. Relief because I could sleep more than four 130 00:07:47.759 --> 00:07:51.360 hours a night. Anxiety because I knew from two years 131 00:07:51.360 --> 00:07:54.759 of experience that silence on this mountain was never permanent. 132 00:07:55.399 --> 00:07:59.600 It was an intermission, not an ending. April brought warmth 133 00:07:59.639 --> 00:08:02.720 and grin and the return of the birds. The whipper 134 00:08:02.720 --> 00:08:05.480 wheels came back. The wood thrushes set up in the 135 00:08:05.480 --> 00:08:08.199 oaks near Bishop Creek and filled the evenings with that 136 00:08:08.240 --> 00:08:11.160 fluted song that sounds like someone asking a question they 137 00:08:11.160 --> 00:08:14.959 already know the answer to. Reba's zenias pushed through the 138 00:08:15.000 --> 00:08:18.120 soil again, right on schedule, and I let them grow, 139 00:08:18.160 --> 00:08:21.199 because at this point they felt like roommates I'd inherited 140 00:08:21.279 --> 00:08:24.959 along with the cabin. The knocking returned in mid April, 141 00:08:25.519 --> 00:08:28.879 tentative at first, a single strike from the ridge every 142 00:08:28.879 --> 00:08:33.679 few evenings, always after sunset, always from the northeast, the 143 00:08:33.720 --> 00:08:37.279 same direction as the bluff. I noted it in the notebook, 144 00:08:37.320 --> 00:08:40.799 but didn't react beyond that. I'd learned that my reaction 145 00:08:40.919 --> 00:08:43.720 seemed to influence the behavior, and I wanted to see 146 00:08:43.759 --> 00:08:47.399 what would happen if I simply listened, without responding, without 147 00:08:47.480 --> 00:08:51.759 walking toward the sound, without knocking back, without changing my 148 00:08:51.879 --> 00:08:56.399 routine in any visible way. What happened was escalation. By 149 00:08:56.440 --> 00:08:59.799 early May, the single strikes had become pears. By late 150 00:09:00.240 --> 00:09:03.159 the pairs were being answered from the southwest, from down 151 00:09:03.200 --> 00:09:06.559 near the creek, the same call and response pattern I 152 00:09:06.639 --> 00:09:10.080 documented during my first summer, and by early June the 153 00:09:10.159 --> 00:09:14.200 knocking was nightly, again, coming from multiple directions, with an 154 00:09:14.320 --> 00:09:18.600 energy and frequency that surpassed anything I'd heard before. Something 155 00:09:18.639 --> 00:09:23.320 had changed, not in me, in them. I started thinking 156 00:09:23.320 --> 00:09:27.039 about the bluff. The thought crept in gradually, the way 157 00:09:27.080 --> 00:09:30.480 important thoughts often do, not as a sudden decision, but 158 00:09:30.559 --> 00:09:34.240 as a slow accumulation of reasons. The knocking was coming 159 00:09:34.240 --> 00:09:37.559 from the ridge from the northeast, from the direction of 160 00:09:37.600 --> 00:09:41.159 that rocky shelf Earl had warned me about. The tracks 161 00:09:41.159 --> 00:09:43.519 in the snow had come from the same general vector. 162 00:09:44.240 --> 00:09:46.919 The overnight circuit of the cabin had originated from the 163 00:09:46.960 --> 00:09:51.799 northeast tree line. Every approach, every sound, every piece of 164 00:09:51.840 --> 00:09:54.840 evidence pointed toward the upper portion of the ridge as 165 00:09:54.879 --> 00:09:59.600 the thing's primary corridor, its highway, its route between wherever 166 00:09:59.639 --> 00:10:02.480 it spent in its days and the vicinity of my cabin. 167 00:10:03.360 --> 00:10:05.639 The bluff sat right in the middle of that corridor. 168 00:10:06.320 --> 00:10:09.600 I wanted to see it, not from the porch through binoculars, 169 00:10:09.759 --> 00:10:11.480 which is how I'd been looking at the ridge for 170 00:10:11.519 --> 00:10:14.840 two years. I wanted to stand on it. I wanted 171 00:10:14.840 --> 00:10:18.320 to understand the terrain that the creature used. I wanted 172 00:10:18.360 --> 00:10:20.679 to see my cabin from the perspective of something that 173 00:10:20.720 --> 00:10:24.320 had been watching it from above. And yes, I wanted 174 00:10:24.320 --> 00:10:27.000 to go there because Earle told me not to I'm 175 00:10:27.000 --> 00:10:29.879 not proud of that, but I'd spent two years collecting 176 00:10:29.919 --> 00:10:32.879 fragments of information from a man who parceled out truth 177 00:10:33.240 --> 00:10:36.120 the way a miser parcels out coins, one piece at 178 00:10:36.120 --> 00:10:40.039 a time, always less than the whole, always leaving you 179 00:10:40.120 --> 00:10:43.639 to guess at what he was holding back. Every oblique 180 00:10:43.679 --> 00:10:47.960 comment Earl had made, every half warning, every carefully worded 181 00:10:48.039 --> 00:10:52.039 non answer, had eventually been validated by something I experienced 182 00:10:52.039 --> 00:10:56.840 on the property RIBA's garden, the mountain's rhythm. The bluff 183 00:10:56.879 --> 00:11:00.320 warning was the last one I hadn't tested, and there 184 00:11:00.399 --> 00:11:03.159 in me, the part that had been documenting and measuring 185 00:11:03.240 --> 00:11:06.440 and photographing for two years, needed to know why he'd 186 00:11:06.480 --> 00:11:09.279 set it. I decided to go on a Saturday in 187 00:11:09.360 --> 00:11:14.240 mid June June eighteenth, twenty sixteen. I picked a Saturday 188 00:11:14.240 --> 00:11:16.559 because I wanted the full day, and I picked mid 189 00:11:16.639 --> 00:11:20.360 June because the days were long. Sunset wasn't until nearly nine, 190 00:11:20.399 --> 00:11:23.120 and I'd have maximum daylight for the hike up and back. 191 00:11:23.879 --> 00:11:26.279 I also picked mid June because the forest would be 192 00:11:26.279 --> 00:11:29.679 at peak foliage, which meant maximum cover on the slopes, 193 00:11:30.080 --> 00:11:32.639 which meant anything moving below the ridge line would be 194 00:11:32.720 --> 00:11:36.440 harder to spot from below that cut both ways, I'd 195 00:11:36.480 --> 00:11:39.159 be harder to see too. But I didn't go during 196 00:11:39.200 --> 00:11:41.639 the day. I went in the evening. I need to 197 00:11:41.679 --> 00:11:44.039 explain that decision because it's the one people are going 198 00:11:44.039 --> 00:11:48.279 to question the most, and they should earl specifically said 199 00:11:48.519 --> 00:11:51.159 don't go after dark, and I planned my trip to 200 00:11:51.279 --> 00:11:54.240 arrive at the bluff right around sunset, which meant I'd 201 00:11:54.240 --> 00:11:56.039 be up there as the light failed and I'd be 202 00:11:56.080 --> 00:11:59.840 hiking back down in the dark. Here's my reasoning flawed. 203 00:11:59.919 --> 00:12:04.519 Is it was the creature was nocturnal, or at least crepuscular, 204 00:12:05.000 --> 00:12:07.759 most active around dawn and dusk and through the night. 205 00:12:08.639 --> 00:12:12.279 Every encounter I'd had, every piece of evidence i'd collected, 206 00:12:12.559 --> 00:12:15.399 pointed to a pattern of activity that began at or 207 00:12:15.440 --> 00:12:19.039 shortly after sunset. If I wanted to observe what was 208 00:12:19.080 --> 00:12:21.480 happening on that bluff, I needed to be there when 209 00:12:21.519 --> 00:12:25.000 the activity started. Going at noon on a Tuesday would 210 00:12:25.039 --> 00:12:27.120 have shown me a nice view and some rocks and 211 00:12:27.200 --> 00:12:31.159 nothing else. I also believed, based on two years of contact, 212 00:12:31.399 --> 00:12:34.840 that the creature wasn't aggressive toward me. It had circled 213 00:12:34.840 --> 00:12:38.120 my cabin, it had stood at my windows, it had 214 00:12:38.159 --> 00:12:41.600 called my name in my brother's voice. It had harvested 215 00:12:41.639 --> 00:12:44.080 my garden and turned off my radio and examined my 216 00:12:44.159 --> 00:12:47.480 trail camera. In all of that, it had never made 217 00:12:47.519 --> 00:12:53.080 a threatening move, never charged, never bluff charged, never thrown anything, 218 00:12:53.720 --> 00:12:59.039 never vocalized in a way that communicated aggression. It was curious, intelligent, 219 00:12:59.159 --> 00:13:03.440 and invasive, but it wasn't violent. That assessment turned out 220 00:13:03.440 --> 00:13:07.279 to be mostly correct. But mostly correct and entirely safe 221 00:13:07.639 --> 00:13:10.960 are very different things, and I learned the distance between 222 00:13:11.000 --> 00:13:13.840 them on that bluff. I left the cabin at six 223 00:13:13.840 --> 00:13:17.879 point thirty. Bowie stayed behind. I debated bringing him for 224 00:13:17.960 --> 00:13:20.720 most of the afternoon, going back and forth on it 225 00:13:20.960 --> 00:13:23.279 while I packed my daypack and checked the batteries in 226 00:13:23.320 --> 00:13:26.440 the flashlight. Part of me wanted the comfort of having 227 00:13:26.480 --> 00:13:30.120 him along. Bowie was my anchor. He'd been at my 228 00:13:30.200 --> 00:13:35.039 side for every encounter, every sleepless night, every morning perimeter check. 229 00:13:35.840 --> 00:13:39.200 Having him there made the world feel more navigable. But 230 00:13:39.320 --> 00:13:42.000 ultimately I decided against it because I didn't know what 231 00:13:42.039 --> 00:13:44.279 the terrain was like up there, and I didn't want 232 00:13:44.320 --> 00:13:47.440 him off leash on a cliff edge. Bowie was a 233 00:13:47.440 --> 00:13:50.360 bold dog. He'd chased a squirrel off a deck without 234 00:13:50.360 --> 00:13:53.600 looking first. A cliff face wouldn't occur to him as 235 00:13:53.600 --> 00:13:56.799 a problem until he was already over it. I left 236 00:13:56.879 --> 00:13:59.120 him in the cabin with food, water, and his blanket 237 00:13:59.159 --> 00:14:02.360 by the hearth. He watched me leave through the front window, 238 00:14:02.759 --> 00:14:05.320 standing on his hind legs with his paws on the sell, 239 00:14:05.799 --> 00:14:08.000 and I could see his ears tracking me. As I 240 00:14:08.039 --> 00:14:12.200 crossed the meadow and headed into the trees, he barked twice, 241 00:14:12.240 --> 00:14:16.200 not his alarm, bark is where are you going? Without me? Bark? 242 00:14:17.120 --> 00:14:19.480 I felt guilty about it for the first hundred yards. 243 00:14:20.320 --> 00:14:22.639 The hike started on the game trail behind the cabin, 244 00:14:23.159 --> 00:14:25.080 the same trail where I'd found the first set of 245 00:14:25.120 --> 00:14:27.919 tracks in the clay after the rainstorm two summers earlier. 246 00:14:28.759 --> 00:14:32.159 The trail was well worn from deer and other wildlife. 247 00:14:32.200 --> 00:14:35.000 A narrow path beaten through the leaf litter that switched 248 00:14:35.039 --> 00:14:37.480 backed up the slope in a series of gentle turns. 249 00:14:38.360 --> 00:14:41.519 I followed it up slope through the hardwoods, passed the 250 00:14:41.559 --> 00:14:45.000 property line marked with my faded orange flagging tape, and 251 00:14:45.080 --> 00:14:49.360 into the National Forest. The transition was invisible on the ground, 252 00:14:49.799 --> 00:14:53.759 no fence, no signs, just an imaginary line on a 253 00:14:53.799 --> 00:14:56.919 survey map that the forest paid no attention to. Stay 254 00:14:56.919 --> 00:15:00.440 tuned for more Backwoods big Foot stories will be after 255 00:15:00.559 --> 00:15:06.320 these messages. The evening was warm and still late June. 256 00:15:06.360 --> 00:15:09.440 Heat lingered in the hollows, and the air smelled like 257 00:15:09.480 --> 00:15:12.360 heated earth and the sweet rot of last year's leaves 258 00:15:12.600 --> 00:15:16.799 composting beneath the fresh canopy. Lightning bugs were starting up 259 00:15:16.840 --> 00:15:19.600 in the meadow behind me. I could see their yellow 260 00:15:19.639 --> 00:15:22.000 pulses blinking in the grass as I climbed above the 261 00:15:22.039 --> 00:15:25.759 tree line and looked back. The cabin was already below me, 262 00:15:26.360 --> 00:15:29.279 the green roof glinting in the lateral light, and the 263 00:15:29.320 --> 00:15:33.240 meadow was a bright oval surrounded by dark forest. From 264 00:15:33.279 --> 00:15:35.639 just a few hundred feet of elevation, the view was 265 00:15:35.720 --> 00:15:39.240 already better than anything I'd had from ground level. The 266 00:15:39.279 --> 00:15:42.840 trail thinned as the elevation increased, narrowing from a well 267 00:15:42.879 --> 00:15:45.879 worn path to a faint track through leaf litter two 268 00:15:46.200 --> 00:15:50.519 eventually nothing. The deer had their own roots at higher elevation, 269 00:15:50.960 --> 00:15:53.919 and they didn't align with mine. By the time I'd 270 00:15:53.960 --> 00:15:57.039 gained three hundred feet, I was navigating by terrain alone, 271 00:15:57.480 --> 00:16:00.399 picking my way between trees and over rock out crops, 272 00:16:00.879 --> 00:16:04.399 heading northeast toward the spine of the ridge. I used 273 00:16:04.399 --> 00:16:07.840 the compass occasionally to confirm my direction, but mostly I 274 00:16:07.960 --> 00:16:11.360 navigated by the slope itself, keeping the incline on my 275 00:16:11.440 --> 00:16:15.080 left shoulder and the drainage on my right. The forest 276 00:16:15.200 --> 00:16:19.240 changed as I climbed. The lower slopes were dominated by oak, 277 00:16:19.440 --> 00:16:24.000 hickory and tulip poplar, the standard Southern Appalachian hardwood mix 278 00:16:24.039 --> 00:16:26.960 that covered most of the property below twenty eight hundred feet, 279 00:16:27.480 --> 00:16:31.759 But as I gained altitude, the composition shifted more chestnut oak, 280 00:16:32.120 --> 00:16:36.639 with its deeply furrowed bark and leathery leaves, more sour wood, 281 00:16:37.000 --> 00:16:40.200 thin and elegant, already showing the first hints of the 282 00:16:40.240 --> 00:16:44.080 crimson it would turn in October, the occasional cluster of 283 00:16:44.120 --> 00:16:47.480 table mountain pine clinging to the thinner soil on exposed 284 00:16:47.559 --> 00:16:51.919 rock faces, their needles sharp and dense, their posture crooked 285 00:16:51.960 --> 00:16:55.440 from decades of wind. The trees were shorter up here, 286 00:16:55.759 --> 00:16:58.480 gnarled by weather, and the canopy opened in places to 287 00:16:58.559 --> 00:17:01.600 reveal glimpses of the sky, which was still bright at 288 00:17:01.679 --> 00:17:05.920 seven o'clock, the sun well above the western ridges. A 289 00:17:06.000 --> 00:17:09.000 ruffed grouse exploded from the underbrush about ten feet in 290 00:17:09.000 --> 00:17:12.799 front of me, and nearly stopped my heart. It rocketed 291 00:17:12.880 --> 00:17:15.480 upward through the canopy in a blur of brown feathers 292 00:17:15.480 --> 00:17:18.200 and wing beats, and I stood there with my hand 293 00:17:18.240 --> 00:17:22.160 on my chest, breathing hard, waiting for the adrenaline to settle. 294 00:17:22.960 --> 00:17:25.480 That's the thing about hiking alone in a forest where 295 00:17:25.519 --> 00:17:29.920 you know things live. Every startled bird becomes a potential encounter, 296 00:17:30.640 --> 00:17:34.880 every snap twig becomes a footstep. Your nervous system runs 297 00:17:34.880 --> 00:17:38.000 hot because it's been trained through two years of experience 298 00:17:38.359 --> 00:17:42.480 to treat every unexpected sound as significant. It took me 299 00:17:42.519 --> 00:17:45.119 about forty five minutes to reach the base of the bluff. 300 00:17:45.920 --> 00:17:49.200 The last two hundred yards were steep, a scramble over 301 00:17:49.279 --> 00:17:52.559 exposed rock, and through a stand of rhododendron that grew 302 00:17:52.599 --> 00:17:56.000 thick in the moist shade beneath the cliff face. The 303 00:17:56.000 --> 00:17:59.400 bluff itself was a shelf of gray granite, maybe sixty 304 00:17:59.480 --> 00:18:02.559 feet wide and twenty feet deep, thrusting out from the 305 00:18:02.640 --> 00:18:05.880 ridge line like a diving board. The face below it 306 00:18:05.960 --> 00:18:09.519 dropped away in a near vertical cliff, perhaps eighty feet 307 00:18:09.599 --> 00:18:12.920 down to a talus slope of broken rock and scrubby vegetation. 308 00:18:13.880 --> 00:18:17.039 Beyond the talus, the forest continued downslope in a steep, 309 00:18:17.200 --> 00:18:20.799 unbroken descent, toward a drainage that fed into Bishop Creek. 310 00:18:21.680 --> 00:18:23.720 I pulled myself up the last few feet of rock 311 00:18:23.759 --> 00:18:26.599 and stood on the bluff for the first time. Earl 312 00:18:26.720 --> 00:18:31.480 wasn't exaggerating. The view was extraordinary. Three counties spread out 313 00:18:31.519 --> 00:18:34.799 below me in every direction, the ridges folding into each 314 00:18:34.799 --> 00:18:37.480 other in shades of blue and green that faded toward 315 00:18:37.519 --> 00:18:41.519 the horizon. I could see the valley where Hendersonville sat, 316 00:18:41.720 --> 00:18:44.640 a smudge of development in haze. Fifteen or twenty miles 317 00:18:44.720 --> 00:18:47.599 to the south. I could see the dark line of 318 00:18:47.640 --> 00:18:50.440 the Blue Ridge Parkway tracing the crest of the mountains 319 00:18:50.480 --> 00:18:53.920 to the west, and directly below me, maybe half a 320 00:18:53.960 --> 00:18:56.799 mile away and six hundred feet lower. I could see 321 00:18:56.839 --> 00:19:01.920 my cabin, the green metal roof the meadow, the workshop, 322 00:19:02.640 --> 00:19:05.920 the thread of Bishop Creek catching the low sun, my 323 00:19:06.000 --> 00:19:09.359 truck in the driveway, a dark rectangle on the gravel. 324 00:19:10.160 --> 00:19:13.960 The cabin looked small from up here, fragile, a single 325 00:19:14.000 --> 00:19:17.359 structure in an ocean of forest, surrounded on all sides 326 00:19:17.400 --> 00:19:20.000 by wilderness that didn't know or care. It was there. 327 00:19:20.839 --> 00:19:24.519 I'd always thought of the cabin as substantial, solid, a 328 00:19:24.559 --> 00:19:28.079 fortress of hand hewn logs and stone. But from the 329 00:19:28.119 --> 00:19:31.640 bluff it was a speck, a comma in a paragraph 330 00:19:31.720 --> 00:19:34.920 that stretched for miles in every direction, and the forest 331 00:19:34.960 --> 00:19:39.559 around it was vast, unbroken, dense and deep and ancient, 332 00:19:39.640 --> 00:19:42.960 and full of things I couldn't see. I understood in 333 00:19:43.000 --> 00:19:46.839 that moment something I hadn't fully grasped from ground level, 334 00:19:47.519 --> 00:19:51.079 the creature's perspective. From up here, the cabin wasn't a 335 00:19:51.119 --> 00:19:57.319 barrier or a boundary or a fortification. It was visible, exposed, trackable. 336 00:19:58.000 --> 00:20:00.000 You could stand on this bluff and watch a person 337 00:20:00.000 --> 00:20:03.039 and move between the house and the workshop. You could 338 00:20:03.079 --> 00:20:05.519 see the garden plot or where the garden had been. 339 00:20:06.319 --> 00:20:09.400 You could see the porch, the driveway, the path to 340 00:20:09.440 --> 00:20:13.319 the creek. Everything I did on that property, every routine, 341 00:20:13.880 --> 00:20:18.000 every habit, every daily pattern was readable from this elevation. 342 00:20:18.960 --> 00:20:20.759 The creature didn't need to be in the tree line 343 00:20:20.759 --> 00:20:23.359 to observe me. It just needed to be up here, 344 00:20:23.960 --> 00:20:26.599 And it had been up here. I knew that before 345 00:20:26.640 --> 00:20:29.839 I found the evidence, because the evidence was everywhere. The 346 00:20:29.880 --> 00:20:32.519 surface of the bluff was weathered granite too, hard to 347 00:20:32.559 --> 00:20:36.720 hold footprints, but the margins told the story. Along the 348 00:20:36.759 --> 00:20:39.279 back edge, where the rock met the slope, there was 349 00:20:39.319 --> 00:20:43.000 a strip of soil about two feet wide. In that soil, 350 00:20:43.240 --> 00:20:48.160 compressed and aged, but still visible, were tracks, not one set, 351 00:20:48.519 --> 00:20:53.279 many overlapping impressions of bare feet, the same general dimensions 352 00:20:53.319 --> 00:20:56.480 I'd been documenting for two years, pressed into the dirt 353 00:20:56.559 --> 00:20:59.680 at various depths and angles. Some were fresh enough that 354 00:20:59.720 --> 00:21:03.640 the ages were still crisp. Others were weathered, softened by 355 00:21:03.759 --> 00:21:07.799 rain weeks or months old. The soil along the back 356 00:21:07.839 --> 00:21:11.359 of the bluff was a palimpsest of visits, layer upon layer, 357 00:21:11.720 --> 00:21:14.119 a record of repeated use that went back further than 358 00:21:14.160 --> 00:21:17.880 I could determine. The bluff wasn't just on the creature's route. 359 00:21:18.240 --> 00:21:22.559 The bluff was a destination, a vantage point, a watch tower. 360 00:21:23.240 --> 00:21:26.920 I found other things. Scattered Along the eastern edge of 361 00:21:26.920 --> 00:21:29.880 the shelf. There was a collection of stones, not a 362 00:21:29.960 --> 00:21:35.119 natural scatter, an arrangement twelve or fifteen rocks, varying in 363 00:21:35.200 --> 00:21:38.640 size from a baseball to a cantelope, stacked and grouped 364 00:21:38.640 --> 00:21:41.440 in a way that didn't match any geological process I 365 00:21:41.519 --> 00:21:44.680 was aware of. Some were stacked two or three high, 366 00:21:45.119 --> 00:21:49.359 balanced with a stability that suggested careful placement. Others were 367 00:21:49.400 --> 00:21:52.279 lined up in a short row, touching end to end, 368 00:21:52.680 --> 00:21:56.200 like a fence or a boundary marker. One cluster formed 369 00:21:56.200 --> 00:21:59.279 a rough semicircle around a flat slab of granite that 370 00:21:59.319 --> 00:22:02.119 looked like it could serve as a seat or a platform. 371 00:22:02.559 --> 00:22:07.400 The arrangement wasn't geometric or symmetrical. It was loose, organic. 372 00:22:07.880 --> 00:22:09.599 The kind of thing that could have been dismissed is 373 00:22:09.680 --> 00:22:12.319 random if you looked at it for two seconds. But 374 00:22:12.400 --> 00:22:14.359 I'd spend enough time in the woods to know that 375 00:22:14.480 --> 00:22:18.240 rocks don't stack themselves, and they don't form semicircles on 376 00:22:18.279 --> 00:22:22.680 their own. Gravity doesn't stack things in neat rows. Water 377 00:22:22.759 --> 00:22:25.599 doesn't create balance stacks on a flat ledge with no 378 00:22:25.759 --> 00:22:29.920 slope to concentrate debris, something had gathered these stones and 379 00:22:30.000 --> 00:22:34.960 placed them here over time, repeatedly. I'd heard about this 380 00:22:36.039 --> 00:22:38.759 in the research I'd been doing since finding your podcasts. 381 00:22:38.960 --> 00:22:45.799 I'd come across reports of stone structures associated with sasquatch activity, areas, cairns, stacks, 382 00:22:46.359 --> 00:22:49.880 arranged piles. They show up and encounter reports from all 383 00:22:49.920 --> 00:22:53.799 over North America, from the Pacific Northwest to the Ozarks, 384 00:22:53.960 --> 00:22:57.480 to the appellation chain. Nobody agrees on what they mean. 385 00:22:57.920 --> 00:23:02.279 Some researchers think their territorial marks. Some think their navigational 386 00:23:02.319 --> 00:23:06.000 aids like trail signs. Some think their play the way 387 00:23:06.039 --> 00:23:10.000 a child stacks blocks. Others think we're projecting meaning onto 388 00:23:10.039 --> 00:23:13.680 debris that the creatures moved for practical reasons we don't understand. 389 00:23:14.519 --> 00:23:17.799 I didn't know which interpretation was right, But standing on 390 00:23:17.839 --> 00:23:21.200 that bluff, looking at a semicircle of stones arranged around 391 00:23:21.200 --> 00:23:24.400 a flat slab with a view of three counties, I 392 00:23:24.440 --> 00:23:27.480 had the distinct and unshakable feeling that I was standing 393 00:23:27.559 --> 00:23:31.119 in someone's living room. Dennis at the hardware store had 394 00:23:31.160 --> 00:23:33.880 mentioned once that old timers in the valley used to 395 00:23:33.920 --> 00:23:37.119 talk about rock piles on the ridges. He'd brought it 396 00:23:37.200 --> 00:23:40.319 up in the context of a conversation about property boundaries, 397 00:23:40.640 --> 00:23:43.680 saying that some of the early settlers used stacked stones 398 00:23:43.720 --> 00:23:47.000 as corner markers, but that you'd sometimes find stacks in 399 00:23:47.039 --> 00:23:51.160 places that didn't correspond to any known survey. He shrugged 400 00:23:51.160 --> 00:23:55.400 it off as random geology. Rocks do weird things on slopes, 401 00:23:55.440 --> 00:23:58.440