Speaker 1: If you were following along with it What If It's
True podcast and listening to the archived audio that I'm
posting from four three, four, five years back, you have
probably gotten used to a certain cadence and the way
I read stories. None of it has thought out. It's
just that over the years I've gotten more comfortable doing it.
It's a funny thing turning this microphone on. Even though
you're alone in a room, you still feel like you're
talking in front of a big audience. And that's the
way I felt when I first started this podcast. And
to be honest, the podcast is kind of a fluke.
I just did it as fun, and I discovered that
people actually liked hearing these stories, so I just kept
doing it. I had no plans, there was no plan
at all. I just wrote a couple of bigfoot stories
that I had heard through my life, and I read
them and put it out on YouTube, just as kind
of a gag. Not a gag. It's just something crazy
to do, and out of nowhere, people really started liking
this well, this podcast, which is archive number eighty seven
or two of the earliest stories I ever did, probably
in the first three months, I don't remember what episode
they were, but you will hear almost how nervous and
monotone I am as I read these, and I thought
I would warn you before you get into this podcast.
So now you've been warned. This is going to be
kind of cheesy. However, the stories are really good, and
I'm almost sorry that I didn't do them justice, but
they're still told. They're understandable. I've redone the audio. That's
what I'm doing with all of these archived audio files
as i'm reading, trying to remaster as an amateur audio editor,
just to make them sound a little better. Put a
few more spaces. But you know, I used to read
stuff just so fast that I don't know, It's just
the way my brain worked. Anyway, I just want to
let you know that this is going to sound not
very good, but the stories are great and I hope
you enjoy it. Thank you for following along with these
archived podcasts. I'm having a ball doing them. This is
eighty seven. I was just going to do about one hundred,
but they're pretty easy to do, and I can do
them quick. I can go back into my files and
just pick random stories that I think are good and
put them up as archive, so I'll thank you again
when I get to one hundred, because that's kind of
a milestone. I don't know. I just want to let
y'all know that I appreciate you listening to this podcast.
It's very it's very encouraging to me to look at
the numbers on my statistics just on the podcast app.
It's just encouraging and I appreciate you listening. So thanks,
and here we go with another archive number eighty seven.
Hope you enjoy it.
Speaker 2: Bo is my dog and my best friend in the
whole world. I'm a single man who travels all over
to fish secluded lakes. Bo has been with me since
the age of six months old. I got Bow from
a dog rescue shelter. Here is what most people call
a sooner or a mutt. Those are the best kind
to have in my book. Bo was six years old
at the time of this event. I've trained Bow very well.
He is a very well mannered dog, unless you mess
with his boat, his truck, or meat. I picked a
lake located way back in the hills of East Tennessee
for this trip. Bo and I loaded up our gear
and then headed out for a three day weekend from
the information I could find about this lake, it was
fished very little, and not many people ever went there.
Sounded like the perfect place to go, right, or so
I thought from the map showing a small town to
be the last place to stop for gas and food.
Before heading the last fifteen miles into the hills, we
stopped for a bite to eat at a small country restaurant.
Bo jumped into the bed of the truck and stood
guard over his property while I went inside to order
us something to go. So we sat out in the
parking lot and ate our lunch. After we finished eating,
I pulled across the road to the only gas station
in this town to fill up the truck and the boat.
It was one of those old time full service stations
that you very rarely see anymore. This elderly man came
walking out and asked, fill her up. Check your year all.
I replied, yes, sir, I need both truck and boat
filled with gas please. As he was filling the last
tank up, he turned and asked, looks like you're going
on a camping trip. I replied, yes, sir, we're heading
up to the lake for a couple of days. He
turned and gave me a very strange look and then
asked what lake the one just up the road. He
then asked, I see you from out of state. Have
you ever been up there before? I said, no, sir,
this is our first time being up here. This put
a weird expression on his face, looking at me like
I was crazy or something. He then asked, what do
you know about this lake? Nothing other than I could
find on the internet that it was not fish very
much and not a very popular place. Why is that,
I asked, Is the fishing that bad up there? He said, Oh,
there's a lot of fish in that lake, just no
one goes up there anymore. Before I could ask any
more questions, a car pulled into the other side of
the gas pumps for service. So the man finished, took
my money and thanked me and told me good luck
as he proceeded to help the other customer. As I
was pulling out, I had this strange feeling inside that
this old man wanted to tell me something. I shook
it off and went on my way. Once we got
to the lake, I found a real nice spot right
by the water to set up our camp. After unloading
and setting our camp up, the sun was starting to
set I figured it would be best to wait until
morning to get the boat undone and lost. It's a
good thing I did. I turned the radio on for
some music while I got the campfire going. Bow was
checking things out around the camp. He seemed to be
happy with our spot, but he was acting kind of strange.
He kept sniffing the air and then making groaning sounds.
It was like he knew something was not quite right.
I had never seen him act like this. I would
give him a pat on the head and ask, what
is it, boy, what are you smelling? I was not
picking up any strange smell, so I didn't think anything
else about it. A little later that evening, I put
a pot of stew on the fire to get us
some dinner going. It was not long before you could
smell the aroma of stew cooking. There's nothing better than
food cooking on an open campfire. Everything was so nice
and peaceful with Bow and I sitting by the fire
chilling out, when all of a sudden, Bow jumped up
with the hair standing up on his back and started drowling.
I couldn't see anything, but I heard something messing around
in the brush. I kept asking, what is it? Bo,
what is it. I got the flashlight and shinded around
the area Bow was pointing at, and then I saw it.
It was a raccoon. I guess he smelled food and
came looking for a free meal. I told Bow it
was okay and to leave the coon alone. That was
going to happen. After a little bit of letting the
raccoon know who was boss, he then laid back down
and the raccoon made his way off into the woods.
I figured he would be back later in the night
to plunder through our stuff or to find a snack.
Bo and I had our dinner and then cleaned everything
up and put away to make it as raccoon proof
as possible. I then threw some bread out away from
the main camp with hopes that the raccoon would find
it and leave our stuff alone. It was getting a
bit late and I wanted to get an early start,
so I figured it was time for us to call
it a night. But Bou didn't want to go in
just yet and kept sniffing the air. I figured it
was that raccoon still messing around. I put the fire
out and then we got into our tent. I got
undressed and then crawled into my sleeping bag and shut
the lantern off. Later into the wee hours of the morning,
Bo woke me up, growling, and then he started barking.
I figured, once again it was that raccoon had come back,
and Bow heard him messing around. I spoke up, saying,
it's okay, Bo, it's just that raccoon, and I told
him to lie back down. He refused, and he kept growling.
I said, fine, let's go take a look. I opened
up the tent and a rank smell hit me in
the face. This was something I had never smelled before.
Before I could get out of the tent, Bow blasted
past me full charge. I grabbed the flashlight while commanding
Bow to stop and wait for me. Bo stopped but
kept his stand growling like a mad dog. I shined
the light in the direction Bou was looking, and there
it was tall, hairy, long arms, short legs. This thing
was huge. When the light shined on its face, this
thing let out a snarling sound at us that sent
chills to my spine. This sent Bow into attack mode.
Bow charged the creature. I yell stop, Bow stop, but
it was too late. When Bo got to this thing,
it grabbed Bow up like a twig and had him
by his throat. I screamed, please let my dog go.
I could see Bow was now motionless and thought this
thing had broke Bow's neck. I kept pleading, please don't
kill my dog. He's all I have in my life.
Over and over, I said, please don't kill my dog.
The creature just looked at me as I kept pleading
with it not to kill the dog. Then the creature
let go of Bow and he dropped to the ground motionless.
I could see Bow was still breathing, meaning he was
not dead. So I was trying to figure out how
to get him away from this creature when it dawned
on me what this creature might be. So I spoke
in a lighter tone, saying, you're a sasquatch. It just
stood there looking at me while I kept talking. I said,
we are not here to do you any harm, and
if you will please let us go, we will leave
right now. Just please don't kill my dog. Just let
the dog go and we will be gone. I don't
remember how I felt at the time. I know I
was terrified, but I was more concerned for Beau than
I was for myself. The creature raised its arm and
made a motion with its hands as if to tell
us to go. Then it stepped back a few feet,
allowing me to grab Bow up and put him into
the truck. I then ran to the tent and grabbed
my pants that had my truck keys and wallet. Then
ran to the truck and fired that motor up and
hauled out of there. As I was leaving, I could
see from my tail lights the creature was still standing there.
By the time I got to the hard road, Bou
had come to and started trying to get up. I
told him to lie still as I paid his head.
Once I made it out to the main road, I
figured we were far enough away to stop so I
could check Bo out. He seemed to be doing okay.
I take it this creature had choked Bow to the
point of passing out, but not to kill him. I
stepped out of the truck with my pants in hand.
I was wearing nothing but my underwear. I pulled on
my pants, jump back in the truck and hit the road,
knowing I left all my camping gear behind and knowing
I would never return for it. When I got back
to the small town, it was shut down tight not
a soul was around, not even a light on anywhere.
I kept going and did not stop until I was
clean out of that state. You can bet I will
never return to that place, no matter what I had
left behind. I would only become a laughing stock to
those locals if I did. I have no doubt they
know of this creature, but we're not going to let
anyone know about it, which I can understand. In our area,
we had a bad flood in nineteen fifty five. The
government decided it was going to dam the Delaware River
and started the Tos Island Dam project. They bought thirty
miles of river bottom, bulldozed two hundred year old homes,
displaced businesses, and created a real mess. There was squatting
and protesting, and then they found out that geologically they
couldn't put the dam in. My wife and I started
dating back in nineteen eighty three, and we didn't have
much money, so we went camping a lot. We used
the old church camp I went to as a kid,
which is located in the middle of what the government
is now calling a wild and scenic area. There isn't
a house for ten miles in any direction from where
we were. I decided to drive through the chest deep
thistles we walked through the previous year. My wife told
me not to do it because she was sure we
were going to get stuck. Five hours of jacking and
stuffing wood under the car and I finally got the
car unstuck. She is still mad at me today. We
set up camp on a bluff over a forty foot
drop to the water. We created the fire and pitched
our tent. We got our food safely hung in a
tree because we were in bear country. In fact, I
hunt there still today. Anyway, about nine thirties, just as
it was starting to get good and dark, something walked
up on our camp site. It proceeded to go from
the top of the bank around our site, just outside
of the firelight, to the top of the adjacent bank.
This went on for an hour until it broke a stick,
loud enough that my wife turned to me and said,
what was that. I said I didn't know, and she says,
what do you mean you don't know? Now? I had
been fishing since I could hold a ride, and hunting
since I was four years old. I spent more time
sleep being outside than inside when I was a kid,
So she knew something was up. I said again, I
didn't know, and it's been out there about an hour.
She asked why hadn't I told her, and I said
I didn't want to scare her. Meanwhile, I'm sitting there
with a hatchet under one leg, and if it lay
knife under the other, you only need to see the
movie Deliverance once to know we could be in big trouble.
After another hour, we couldn't stay awake anymore and went
in our tent to lay down. She fell asleep right away,
and I'm laying on top of my bag with my
knife and my hatchet. Ten minutes after we lay down,
this thing starts screaming at us. We both sit bolt upright,
and she says, what in the hell is that? I said,
I didn't know, and I'm not staying in here. This
scream was so loud it went right through you. It
had such resonance that it blurred my vision. It was
definitely territorial, and it was directed at us. I went
out of the tent and stood with the fire at
my back. There is literally nothing in that valley, and
there is no light pollution. I stood looking into the
inky blackness and said to myself, well, I know what
the problem is here. I stoked that fire up big,
went back into the tent and tried to sleep. In
the morning, I looked for an hour for tracks, but
there had been a really dry weather system that summer
and there was little sign left. That started thirty five
years of study. I have met nearly thirty people that
have had encounters, and just as many that know someone
who has had an encounter. I have lectured locally about
what I have found. I really don't care what people
think about what I say. They weren't in the tent
with me that night. I was in the Coastguard at
the time and quite sober. I'm a successful doctor and
mayor of my town for many years. I don't shy
from telling my story because folks, I don't know what
I know. There are woods in Pennsylvania where you could
stand twenty feet from me with the road flare in
each hand, and I wouldn't be able to see you.
Encounters like this change your life. I played that night
through my head on hundreds of nights, and I have
told that account to many people, many times