Speaker 1: All right, here's a story about a dog man. This
Speaker 1: man email. This is an older one too. He emailed
Speaker 1: me quite a ways back. Let's see what he says.
Speaker 1: I think it's pretty good. I've traveled around the entire
Speaker 1: lower forty eight states and through five time zones of
Speaker 1: Canada from the Atlantic to the Pacific Coast offer hiking
Speaker 1: and photography. I have visited all the big cities, but
Speaker 1: most of the time I'm in one of the national
Speaker 1: parks or state parks or national monuments. Recently, during the winter,
Speaker 1: my daughter and I headed to Florida for a week
Speaker 1: or two. The highlight for us was Key West. We
Speaker 1: spent a couple of days in the Keys, and after
Speaker 1: getting our fill of beautiful sunsets, we headed back to
Speaker 1: the mainland. We reached US forty one through the Everglades
Speaker 1: around midnight and we found a water pumps and we
Speaker 1: parked under the light pole to kill some time and
Speaker 1: rest up. After a while, a police car pulled into
Speaker 1: the station. I assumed it wanted us and everyone else out,
Speaker 1: so I started the car again and I pulled onto
Speaker 1: the road heading west. We wanted to be at Sharp
Speaker 1: Valley entrance to the Everglades, National Park by sunrise so
Speaker 1: we could spend the day hiking, and our plan was
Speaker 1: to pass the entrance and find a safe place to
Speaker 1: park for a few hours. We drove past Monroe Station
Speaker 1: and found a picnic area and we parked. The moon
Speaker 1: was an upside down crescent sitting far in the east
Speaker 1: of a black sky full of stars, and after just
Speaker 1: a few minutes I saw a shooting star. And my
Speaker 1: daughter had fallen asleep by then, and as I scanned
Speaker 1: the sky looking for more action in the distance, I
Speaker 1: saw a light coming our way. I thought it may
Speaker 1: have been a lightning bug, since in Florida, insects seem
Speaker 1: a lot bigger than back home in New Jersey. But
Speaker 1: as I watched it get closer, I realized it wasn't
Speaker 1: a lightning bug at all. It was the eye of
Speaker 1: a ten foot tall monster. It was blazing evil a
Speaker 1: giant lemon, and sticking out from the head of a beast.
Speaker 1: I fumbled to reach for the headlights, but my better
Speaker 1: senses told me not to let this thing know I
Speaker 1: was there. It moved like it was on roller skates,
Speaker 1: without the slightest bounce in its step, and it was
Speaker 1: so big that it would have had to have stooped
Speaker 1: down to look an elephant in the eye, and it
Speaker 1: could have ripped the roof off my car and plucked
Speaker 1: us like eggs from a basket. But instead it disappeared
Speaker 1: into the darkness to the east, and I could tell
Speaker 1: it was on a mission, and I was relieved it
Speaker 1: didn't involve me and my daughter. At that point, I
Speaker 1: didn't care about getting any sleep, so I started the
Speaker 1: car and drove it to the exit and got straight
Speaker 1: out of there. When morning came, we headed back to
Speaker 1: the Everglades National Park, and when we passed through Monroe
Speaker 1: Station again, we saw signs that said don't feed the Bigfoot.
Speaker 1: I have repeatedly heard that Bigfoot has red eyes, but
Speaker 1: the eyes of the creature I saw were blazing fluorescent
Speaker 1: yellow without any pupils. I'm sure it could see in
Speaker 1: the dark and must have known my daughter and I
Speaker 1: were there. I believe it was a dog man, and
Speaker 1: I told my daughter about it the next morning, and
Speaker 1: to this day, I'm ridden with guilt that I endangered
Speaker 1: her life by not getting out of there sooner. It
Speaker 1: had the chance to confront us, but for some reason
Speaker 1: it chose not to. We were lucky it didn't come
Speaker 1: back with a friend and pick up the car and
Speaker 1: carry us away to never be seen again. Wow, that's
Speaker 1: another Florida, Florida's story, I said. When I first started it,
Speaker 1: it was labeled a dog man's story and the sign
Speaker 1: said don't fit feed Bigfoot. This is in Florida Monroe
Speaker 1: Station Everglades National Park. I guess this guy saw a
Speaker 1: dog man. I wonder if he saw any more detail
Speaker 1: other than the shape, because it was dark and there
Speaker 1: was a crescent man. There wasn't a full moon, and
Speaker 1: it had big glowing eyes. Man, Man, that is cool,
Speaker 1: cool story. Thank you to the writer. I hope you
Speaker 1: guys have gotten over that episode and they're continuing to hike.
Speaker 1: And did you say you do? Yeah, hiking in photography.
Speaker 1: He's a photographer, So I hope you're still into that.
Speaker 1: I really do, And again I appreciate the story. Sir.
Speaker 1: Here is an email. Oh let me get my mic
Speaker 1: up here. It was way over there. Here is an
Speaker 1: email from a man from the United Kingdom. This is
Speaker 1: pretty good. It's difficult to know where to start. Really.
Speaker 1: I'm fifty five and I live in the United Kingdom
Speaker 1: life and I absolutely love the United States, and I
Speaker 1: have lost count of how many holidays over the years
Speaker 1: that we have spent traveling your great nation. My granddad
Speaker 1: was an American citizen, and he spent many hours telling
Speaker 1: me stories about his adventures across the Pond. I guess
Speaker 1: that's where my love for the United States came from.
Speaker 1: I've never given Bigfoot much thought while traveling through the
Speaker 1: national parks over the years, but I've always been open
Speaker 1: minded about it, and if I'm honest, I would be
Speaker 1: a person who needed proof. I sort of thought there
Speaker 1: must be something going on, though otherwise it's the biggest
Speaker 1: con the world has ever known. Either way, it never
Speaker 1: deterred me from exploring. I've been traveling to the United
Speaker 1: States since nineteen eighty nine and I have never had
Speaker 1: any encounters, and I've been to over thirty states. Now.
Speaker 1: Florida has always been somewhere that we've loved, and people
Speaker 1: mistake it for just the attractions, but it's very much
Speaker 1: more than that. The wildlife is amazing, and you can
Speaker 1: find yourself in the middle of nowhere within ten minute
Speaker 1: drive of serious infrastructure. It was love at first sight, really,
Speaker 1: and we decided early on that we were going to
Speaker 1: spend a lot of time there. In twenty sixteen, in
Speaker 1: preparation for my retirement, we decided to buy a home
Speaker 1: in central Florida. I took my son and his wife
Speaker 1: and two grandchildren with me and we purchased a fabulous
Speaker 1: home in a gated community in an area called I
Speaker 1: can't pronounce this point Siana poi n cia na Pointciana.
Speaker 1: That's the only way I know to say it. And
Speaker 1: we had a great vacation. The night of the purchase,
Speaker 1: we sat around celebrating and planning our many family holidays
Speaker 1: to come. It was a special time for me, my
Speaker 1: family around me, A second home in Florida, a place
Speaker 1: I felt at home in. What more could I ask for.
Speaker 1: We picked poinsy Ona because it was far enough away
Speaker 1: from the attractions, but close enough to see them if
Speaker 1: we felt the urge, you know, for the grandkids and
Speaker 1: the extended family. And when you see it on Google Earth,
Speaker 1: it looks like it's in the middle of nowhere, surrounded
Speaker 1: by nature, and that's what I wanted. The community had
Speaker 1: all the amenities that anyone would need, but the most
Speaker 1: important thing for me was lots of trails in and
Speaker 1: out of the community. In the UK, you don't get
Speaker 1: this because houses are not on the verge of while
Speaker 1: nature like that. It was on one of these trails
Speaker 1: outside the community that my life changed forever, and not
Speaker 1: for good by any stretch of the imagination. I've only
Speaker 1: told this story to my wife and my son and
Speaker 1: a few close friends. They thought I was crazy, and
Speaker 1: they mocked me in a nice way. But it made
Speaker 1: me realize that people have a hard time accepting this
Speaker 1: sort of thing. Hell, I've already said that I would
Speaker 1: need proof, so why would they be any different. My
Speaker 1: wife refuses to talk about it anymore, and I think
Speaker 1: she believes me, but the thought of this being true
Speaker 1: is too much for her to comprehend. It was five
Speaker 1: pm on a very warm day in June and I've
Speaker 1: been doing some minor decorating task on the new home
Speaker 1: while everyone else had gone to the attractions for the day.
Speaker 1: I had to get this work completed because I wanted
Speaker 1: to get the home on the rental market before we
Speaker 1: left in the next few days to head back to
Speaker 1: the UK. I was itching to explore, and I thought
Speaker 1: of myself as a bit of a bushman, at one
Speaker 1: with nature and all that. I took some water and
Speaker 1: went out the back of the property and then headed
Speaker 1: for the nature area. It was easy to find and
Speaker 1: easy to transition into what I considered to be wild Florida.
Speaker 1: There were trails running as far as the eye could see,
Speaker 1: with a heavy blanket of trees above me and plant
Speaker 1: and water coverage on either side, and I thought I
Speaker 1: would take a walk down one of the trails, hoping
Speaker 1: to see an alligator or maybe a python. I remember
Speaker 1: feeling so happy and contented with myself. After all, I
Speaker 1: had just realized a dream, and the thought of spending
Speaker 1: lots of time there was almost overwhelming. I had been
Speaker 1: walking for no more than ten minutes when I heard
Speaker 1: what can only be described as a low moan coming
Speaker 1: from my left. I slowed down, and without warning, I
Speaker 1: stepped out into the trail. And nothing prepares you for this.
Speaker 1: I don't care what people say. I was absolutely terrified.
Speaker 1: It was fifty yards in front of me, and at
Speaker 1: first I didn't think it saw me because it looked
Speaker 1: across the trail to the other side. And then it
Speaker 1: turned its head toward me and followed quickly by its
Speaker 1: whole body, almost in one motion, and let out what
Speaker 1: I can only describe as a low, deep, prolonged growl. Now,
Speaker 1: my wife loved horror films, and I think they're stupid.
Speaker 1: Oh my gosh, man, you and I could have a
Speaker 1: long conversation over horror films sitting in the pub drinking
Speaker 1: a beer, because my wife likes horror stories and so
Speaker 1: do my kids, and I think they're stupid. They never
Speaker 1: scare me because they're so stupid. I'm sorry to digress, y'all.
Speaker 1: Let's get back to the story. I always say that
Speaker 1: you would just run if a monster were coming, so
Speaker 1: I could never take them seriously. But I'm here to
Speaker 1: tell you that I couldn't move my legs. They felt
Speaker 1: like lead, and my blood ran cold in that split second,
Speaker 1: and my life flashed in front of me, and I
Speaker 1: was sure I was a dead man. It was as
Speaker 1: simple as that. I'm six feet two inches tall and
Speaker 1: i weighed two hundred and twenty pounds, and I'm in
Speaker 1: good shape. And this thing wasn't much taller than me.
Speaker 1: But it was white and thick set, and it had
Speaker 1: the face of a caveman. It must have been five
Speaker 1: hundred pounds or more. It had muscle definition and fairly
Speaker 1: long hair, and it looked at me with what I
Speaker 1: can only say was contempt. Just as fast as it
Speaker 1: stepped out, it turned and stepped to the other side
Speaker 1: of the trail, and it was gone. Well. I turned around,
Speaker 1: not quite believing what I had just seen, and I
Speaker 1: started to walk back, looking over my shoulder every few seconds.
Speaker 1: Now it sounds strange, but I was physically drained. I
Speaker 1: could hardly walk, let alone run, And after a few
Speaker 1: minutes I had to stop and I dropped to my
Speaker 1: knees and I vomited. I was in absolute mess, and
Speaker 1: I couldn't believe what had happened. This encounter has had
Speaker 1: a very negative effect on me. It's opened up a
Speaker 1: whole new world to me. If Bigfoot exists, then doesn't
Speaker 1: that mean that other cryptids may exist too? Dog Man ghosts,
Speaker 1: things that go bump in the night. I'm gone from
Speaker 1: being an outgoing person to someone who looks over his
Speaker 1: shoulder all the time. My wife keeps ponies and I
Speaker 1: refuse to go and check them in the dark. I
Speaker 1: have not been back to the US for four years.
Speaker 1: We're planning a trip to the Smoky Mountains this year,
Speaker 1: but COVID nineteen put a stop to that, and I'm
Speaker 1: glad it did. The thought of going to the Smoky
Speaker 1: Mountains fills me with dread and fear even now, four
Speaker 1: years on and with some therapy. In twenty eighteen, I
Speaker 1: sought help to try to overcome this because it was
Speaker 1: dominating my life. Obsession is a strong word, but that
Speaker 1: best describes how I felt about it. There wasn't a
Speaker 1: week that I didn't have a serious nightmare about this thing,
Speaker 1: and my life changed that day forever. I was worried
Speaker 1: that I might be ridiculed, but the therapist was actually brilliant.
Speaker 1: And the irony is that we Brits think going to
Speaker 1: therapy is an American thing, but here I am doing it.
Speaker 1: The therapist help me come to terms with the encounter.
Speaker 1: She said that whatever I saw stripped away my innocence.
Speaker 1: The paradigm I had built up over my life was gone,
Speaker 1: and the world was a new and scary place. And
Speaker 1: she helped me look at the encounter as a privilege
Speaker 1: that many people would love to have. I'm in a
Speaker 1: bitter place now, but I still need time before I
Speaker 1: ventured to the US again. And as I said in
Speaker 1: my garden, gaze up at the night sky, I know
Speaker 1: they are out there, and some people may have suffered
Speaker 1: horrifically at their hands. No matter how much therapy I get,
Speaker 1: and no matter how many years go by, the look
Speaker 1: of contempt on this thing's face is something that I'm
Speaker 1: sure will never leave me. Okay, I read that cold.
Speaker 1: I didn't expect all that. Now I'm gonna sound redundant here,
Speaker 1: but this is I have never gotten an email, and
Speaker 1: he reverences COVID nineteen. So this is a couple of years.
Speaker 1: I got this email a couple of years ago. I'm
Speaker 1: getting all of them. I'm getting to him just to
Speaker 1: hold on. I got a bunch to do, y'all. So
Speaker 1: I wonder if he's been back. But I really have
Speaker 1: never heard of anyone from the UK coming to the
Speaker 1: US and having an experience like this. I assume this
Speaker 1: was a bigfoot or what the Floridians people in that
Speaker 1: area call a skunk. But because he said it wasn't
Speaker 1: really that big. It was about his same height, but
Speaker 1: I mean it was big. He said it weighed five
Speaker 1: hundred pounds. Good grief, and he goes to therapy for it.
Speaker 1: That's a good move. You know a lot of people
Speaker 1: say they listen to different YouTubers to feel better about
Speaker 1: some I don't know PTSD or whatever from seeing these things.
Speaker 1: I guess I never really put much stock in that,
Speaker 1: to be honest, because my son fought in Afghanistan. I
Speaker 1: don't know if he has PTSD or not. He doesn't
Speaker 1: talk about it. You know, these guys in war and
Speaker 1: people who have been through horrible things as opposed to
Speaker 1: someone just walking up on an unidentified species of animal.
Speaker 1: To me, that's two different things. But this email has
Speaker 1: I think maybe my sensitivity to that may have just
Speaker 1: clicked up a couple of notches because I can feel
Speaker 1: this man's tension and the worry in his voice, and
Speaker 1: his dread of actually coming back to the United States,
Speaker 1: especially up in the Smokies where there are tons of
Speaker 1: bigfoot encounter reports and stories and sightings and probably some
Speaker 1: video and pictures of what people think are bigfoot. I'm
Speaker 1: just saying, that's supposedly a realactive area, and it would
Speaker 1: give them a great environment to live in, you know,
Speaker 1: good habitat, just like Florida. So this was a kind
Speaker 1: of an eye opening five and a half, almost six
Speaker 1: years into this podcast, I got one that actually moved
Speaker 1: me and to the writer, I think he gives his name.
Speaker 1: He didn't say no. He said he wants to be anonymous.
Speaker 1: But if you hear this, mister United Kingdom, I really
Speaker 1: appreciate the email, and I hope you've kept your place
Speaker 1: in Florida because a lot of us go out in
Speaker 1: the woods every day. We never experience anything like this
Speaker 1: at all. Matter of fact, the United States, you know,
Speaker 1: the wilderness in the United States, for the most part,
Speaker 1: is very safe until you get out west and you've
Speaker 1: got big predators like bears and big cats. And still
Speaker 1: people hike it. They hike it, they go camping out there,
Speaker 1: and some people get eaten by bears. Even in the
Speaker 1: Smoky Mountains, people get injured or some people get killed
Speaker 1: by black bears there for the most part, you know,
Speaker 1: especially the southeastern United States. I never go with a gun.
Speaker 1: I don't. Somebody asked me that recently. They said, what
Speaker 1: do you carry when you go in the woods. I'm like,
Speaker 1: I'm not carrying that weight in the woods. I mean,
Speaker 1: I have a I'm not going to talk about my firearms,
Speaker 1: but I have plenty of handguns, and even the smallest
Speaker 1: one adds weight to my hip. And I just don't
Speaker 1: like it, and I don't need it. I mean, the
Speaker 1: most dangerous animal iversy is maybe a cotton mouth or
Speaker 1: a People say you need to watch out for codies
Speaker 1: and stuff. Every cody I've ever seen in my life,
Speaker 1: and I've seen a bunch of them. They just run
Speaker 1: away from me. They don't bother me. Maybe a pack
Speaker 1: of curved dogs might be a problem, but I've run
Speaker 1: up on those before too, and they just run off.
Speaker 1: So the United States is a pretty safe place, a
Speaker 1: lot more dangerous than England in the British Isles and England, Scotland,
Speaker 1: Ireland and probably most of Europe is so populated and
Speaker 1: so short on wilderness that you know, a lot of
Speaker 1: the predators are probably gone. I don't really know. I
Speaker 1: don't know. I know that about England because they crave
Speaker 1: to be in the people in England loved to go
Speaker 1: to the wilderness, and especially here in the United States.
Speaker 1: I'll quit rambling. I just I can't get over how
Speaker 1: moved I was by this man's email, and I really
Speaker 1: appreciating it. I really appreciate him sitting it, so thank you, sir. Okay,
Speaker 1: we'll end this podcast up with a bigfoot story. I
Speaker 1: went on a long walk with my friends Wes, Sean,
Speaker 1: and Randy in an area of wilderness between Abernathy and
Speaker 1: Salmon Creek in Cowlitz County, Washington. Knowing what awaited us,
Speaker 1: we were armed with a Magnum revolver and high powered rifles.
Speaker 1: The day before, Sean had been out here looking for
Speaker 1: fossils when he found a huge barefoot track twenty inches across.
Speaker 1: He knew exactly what kind of creature made the track,
Speaker 1: and he was set on going back to get a
Speaker 1: cast of it. Each of us has had experiences with
Speaker 1: bigfoot in one way or another since middle school. I've
Speaker 1: read every book on bigfoot that I can find, and
Speaker 1: based on my years of studying the subject and the
Speaker 1: experiences of people close to me, I have no doubt
Speaker 1: that it is real, and I'm open with folks about
Speaker 1: my beliefs. My friend Sean had his own experience five
Speaker 1: years earlier near the Bridge of the Gods where the
Speaker 1: Sasquat shook his camper, and our friend Randy saw a
Speaker 1: bigfoot cross a two lane highway late at night in
Speaker 1: just three steps. We didn't want to go alone and unarmed,
Speaker 1: and Sean invited Randy and me to go back with
Speaker 1: him to make the cast of this perfect print. Sean's
Speaker 1: stepdad Wes, is a dentist with an open mind. Now
Speaker 1: that doesn't say dentist, it says dentiist. Is that somebody
Speaker 1: who makes dentiers denturist, dentiists de n t u r ist. Anyway,
Speaker 1: I'm hung up on that. Sorry about that. His stepdad
Speaker 1: West is a denterious with an open mind and a
Speaker 1: three hundred wind mag rifle. He came along too. As
Speaker 1: soon as we crossed into the Warehouser timberlands, we heard
Speaker 1: heavy footsteps parallel to us, made by something walking on
Speaker 1: two feet, and we exchanged some cautious glances, but decided
Speaker 1: to tread on. We falled a game trail Sean had
Speaker 1: marked for about three hours until we got to the print,
Speaker 1: and then we marked around it with an orange survey
Speaker 1: or tape. Sean mixed the dental casting compound that West
Speaker 1: supplied and made a good mold of the print. He
Speaker 1: lifted it up and we started commenting on how detailed
Speaker 1: and defined it was. When a scream came from the
Speaker 1: woods a little too close to our location. The hair
Speaker 1: on our bodies started to rise and we knew we
Speaker 1: had worn out our welcome. We turned around and walked
Speaker 1: out of there as fast as we could, hearing the
Speaker 1: heavy bipedal footsteps parallel to us again, and they paced
Speaker 1: us the whole way back. I've heard many times that
Speaker 1: this is rare for these creatures to show themselves to
Speaker 1: groups of armed men. Some say they can smell the
Speaker 1: metal or the gun ole. I don't really know, but
Speaker 1: if it had charged, we certainly had enough firepower between
Speaker 1: us to knock him down. He must have known we
Speaker 1: were dangerous because he kept just out of sight but
Speaker 1: close enough to make sure that we were leaving his backyard.
Speaker 1: The loggers know sasquatch are real from the Pacific northwest
Speaker 1: all the way down to Arizona and New Mexico. They
Speaker 1: see and hear things that would keep most folks up
Speaker 1: at night. They know a lot, and if you're lucky
Speaker 1: enough to get these guys to talk, they have some
Speaker 1: incredible stories to share. Oh that was a good story
Speaker 1: they got. This guy was a I guess that mean denteroust.
Speaker 1: He's had casting compound for the they use on teeth
Speaker 1: to do the to do the track print. I'm not
Speaker 1: sure how the loggers came into that there at the end,
Speaker 1: but it doesn't matter. It's he just knows. He knows,
Speaker 1: he's probably heard some stories from loggers and that's why
Speaker 1: he put that in there. But this was a really
Speaker 1: good story, and I'm I'm glad. I don't know why
Speaker 1: that caught my attention. He has an open he's a
Speaker 1: dangerous with an open mind, and a three hundred win
Speaker 1: mag rifle. Does it have a scope on it? That's
Speaker 1: all I want to know. Brother. This was a good
Speaker 1: This was a good story. I enjoyed reading it. I
Speaker 1: appreciate you sending it. Kind of a short podcast. I
Speaker 1: didn't have a lot of time today to do this,
Speaker 1: to make a long one, and I thought i'd get
Speaker 1: something out because these were really good stories. In the
Speaker 1: next two or three podcasts may be less than thirty
Speaker 1: minutes long, and I'm gonna keep cranking them out until
Speaker 1: I till I land some work. So I'm having fun,
Speaker 1: all right, See you guys on the next one. Thanks again.