Speaker 1: Imagine dining in a restaurant and overhearing someone's waitress say
Speaker 1: to their table, my nickname since I was a little
Speaker 1: girl has been Little Yetty. Her table had apparently been
Speaker 1: talking bigfoot when she walked by. Wait What, one of
Speaker 1: her customers asked as she was headed down the drink station.
Speaker 1: Their waitress turned back at them and smiled, I'll be
Speaker 1: right back. After a few minutes of which probably seemed
Speaker 1: like an eternity to those people, Little Yetti returned to
Speaker 1: their table. What did you mean, asked one of the
Speaker 1: men at the table. Have you ever seen a bigfoot
Speaker 1: around here? I sure have, she said many times, in
Speaker 1: part that's how I got my nickname. I've sort of
Speaker 1: grown up with them. The three people at the table
Speaker 1: just looked at each other with puzzled looks on their faces,
Speaker 1: she continued. One morning, when I was younger, I looked
Speaker 1: out the window of our family cabin as my uncle
Speaker 1: was outside playing with his two dogs. It was about
Speaker 1: then that he noticed they were nowhere in sight. After
Speaker 1: repeatedly calling their names and also looking behind the cabin,
Speaker 1: he spotted them cowering under his pickup truck in the driveway.
Speaker 1: He called to them, but they wouldn't even look at him.
Speaker 1: What's going on, he wondered out loud, and then he
Speaker 1: noticed the direction they were looking was to the trees
Speaker 1: less than fifty yards directly behind him. At this point,
Speaker 1: everyone at my table continued to eavesdrop on the conversation
Speaker 1: as their waitress paused for a moment and just looked
Speaker 1: at each other. For her customers, Everyone at my table
Speaker 1: continued to eavesdrop on this conversation as their waitress paused
Speaker 1: for a moment and just looked at each of her customers.
Speaker 1: The man in a green hat asked, Okay, what happened next? Well,
Speaker 1: before my uncle even turned turned around, the hair on
Speaker 1: his neck stood straight up. He was almost too afraid
Speaker 1: to turn around as he slowly gazed down at the
Speaker 1: dogs again to see if they were still looking behind him.
Speaker 1: He slowly reached inside the truck and grabbed a Savage
Speaker 1: thirty six hunting rifle. Once more, he checked with the
Speaker 1: dogs before he finally began to turn around. Little Yetti
Speaker 1: stopped her story to add that the woods around their
Speaker 1: family cabin has a long history of visitations from coyotes,
Speaker 1: black bear, elk, mule, deer, Bobcat, mountain lion, and if
Speaker 1: you believe some people, wolves and grizzly bear, whatever was
Speaker 1: behind her uncle was scary enough to spoop those dogs,
Speaker 1: Little Yettie continued. My uncle cautiously swiveled his upper body
Speaker 1: towards the woods, holding the gun close to his chest,
Speaker 1: and then he saw it. Just outside of the trees
Speaker 1: stood a seven to eight foot hairyman watching him and
Speaker 1: his dogs. He was covered in brown hair and he
Speaker 1: stood motionless. I watched through the window as my uncle
Speaker 1: slowly lifted the rifle to his shoulder so he could
Speaker 1: look at this man through a high powered scope. Just
Speaker 1: as he put his eye to the scope, the creature
Speaker 1: turned and ran into the woods. Wow, said one of
Speaker 1: the men at the table. Yeah. It took a couple
Speaker 1: of minutes before his dogs felt safe enough to leave
Speaker 1: the shelter of the truck. Okay, can I get you
Speaker 1: folks anything else? Each of the three men at the
Speaker 1: table looked at each other, and then one ask, so
Speaker 1: why is your nickname, little Yetti? Oh yeah, that's another story,
Speaker 1: well sort of, she said. They all laughed and chimed
Speaker 1: in together. Well we're not going anywhere, so carry on, okay,
Speaker 1: but let me check on my other tables first. Are
Speaker 1: you sure you don't need anything else while I'm here?
Speaker 1: We're sure? How about another round of that delicious root beer?
Speaker 1: And she replied, coming right up. While she was away,
Speaker 1: the three of them just sort of looked off out
Speaker 1: the windows, probably imagining what it could have been like
Speaker 1: to experience a sasquatch up in those mountains, especially when
Speaker 1: your two dogs are apparently unable to confront it. Seriously,
Speaker 1: many people go hiking with their dogs hoping it will
Speaker 1: protect them. Maybe they would, but against a close encounter
Speaker 1: with a sasquatch. My friends and I looked at each
Speaker 1: other and we smiled, Yeah, we're not going anywhere either.
Speaker 1: This is too good. It wasn't long before their waitress
Speaker 1: returned with three large root beers and little YETI said, okay,
Speaker 1: so where were we? One of the men said, we're
Speaker 1: wondering where you got your nickname? Laughing, She said, oh, yeah,
Speaker 1: that the encounter I just told you wasn't my first
Speaker 1: time seeing one of these creatures while growing up at
Speaker 1: my parents' cabin. In fact, I've seen that particular sasquatch
Speaker 1: many times before, so I'm not afraid of him. My
Speaker 1: uncle though that was his first time. He'd heard some
Speaker 1: of my stories over the years, but never had a
Speaker 1: personal experience before that. He didn't want to shoot it,
Speaker 1: just get a closer look. This will probably sound a
Speaker 1: bit unusual and maybe unbelievable, but when I was seven
Speaker 1: years old, my parents and I were sitting in the
Speaker 1: living room of the cabin with the windows and the
Speaker 1: front door open. It was about the same time of
Speaker 1: year as now, so having the windows and door open
Speaker 1: allowed cool air to circulate through the house. Suddenly, my
Speaker 1: mother said, listen, do you hear that? And we all
Speaker 1: stopped moving and tuned our ears towards the outdoors. There
Speaker 1: that did you guys hear it? We all jumped up
Speaker 1: and we ran outside to get a better listen, and
Speaker 1: my dad said, that sounds like an elk calf calling
Speaker 1: out to its mother. And we all looked at each
Speaker 1: other and began moving towards the sound. It didn't seem
Speaker 1: that far away, possibly just inside the trees where my
Speaker 1: uncle saw the hairy man. When we arrived to where
Speaker 1: we thought the sound was coming from, my mother said,
Speaker 1: it now sounds like it's over there, pointing to our left.
Speaker 1: Another thirty or forty yards away. Once more, we stopped
Speaker 1: where we thought the sound was coming from, but we
Speaker 1: didn't see anything there. It is again, my mother said,
Speaker 1: as she pointed back in another direction, What is going on?
Speaker 1: My father said, it's like moving us around, but we
Speaker 1: can't see it. And this continued for quite a while,
Speaker 1: and before we knew it, we were quite a distance
Speaker 1: from the cabin, and then we heard the crying sound
Speaker 1: coming from the edge of a cliff. That cliff was
Speaker 1: nearly a mile from the cabin, and my mother said,
Speaker 1: I don't get it. Where is this baby elk? My
Speaker 1: father walked to the ledge and he looked down. What
Speaker 1: the heck he blurted out, come look at this. My
Speaker 1: mother and I ran over to the edge of the
Speaker 1: cliff and looked down to see what he had seen.
Speaker 1: There on a small ledge was an elk calf. Somehow
Speaker 1: it became trapped about twenty five feet down on a
Speaker 1: really small outcropping. And then my dad asked, okay, how
Speaker 1: would this selk get all the way down there without
Speaker 1: going over the edge. He didn't wait for an answer.
Speaker 1: I'll be right back. I'm going for a rope. You
Speaker 1: two stay here and keep an eye on it. My
Speaker 1: father disappeared back into the woods. Our cabin was now
Speaker 1: a mile away, so it would take a while before
Speaker 1: he returned. My mother and I sat down on a
Speaker 1: fallen tree and just looked down at the baby. Mom,
Speaker 1: how do you get down there? And how could we
Speaker 1: hear it all the way through the woods to our house? Well,
Speaker 1: I don't know, honey. It didn't take my father as
Speaker 1: long to return as I thought it would. He appeared
Speaker 1: on the ranger with ropes in the back. He said,
Speaker 1: you'll never guess what I found on the way to
Speaker 1: the cabin. The baby's mother is dead and her carcass
Speaker 1: has already been chewed on by coyotes. She's not far
Speaker 1: from here, just over that way. Dad tied a rope
Speaker 1: up to his harness into a nearby tree and then
Speaker 1: lowered himself down to the elk. My mom and I
Speaker 1: stood above him and asked, can we do anything to help.
Speaker 1: I'm going to lift the elk above my shoulders and
Speaker 1: try to climb back up. I need you guys to
Speaker 1: keep the rope to the side of the tree root
Speaker 1: so it doesn't get hung up. Okay, can you do that? Sure? Honey?
Speaker 1: My mother replied, It took my dad about five minutes
Speaker 1: to get the baby up to safety. He was exhausted
Speaker 1: and sat down to catch his breath. The three of
Speaker 1: us just sat there looking at the calf. It was
Speaker 1: probably relieved too, but it didn't run off. It just
Speaker 1: laid down in the shade of my father. The waitress
Speaker 1: stopped there, and she looked at her watch and said
Speaker 1: she'd be back for the rest of the story. One
Speaker 1: of her orders had appeared to be up, so she
Speaker 1: needed to take someone's food to the table. While she
Speaker 1: was gone. One of the customers said, poor baby. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I wonder how this story ends, said another guy. It
Speaker 1: was about fifteen minutes before she returned to finish the story. Okay,
Speaker 1: we have to hurry with the rest of the story.
Speaker 1: I have more tables coming in, she said. We all
Speaker 1: piled into our UTV and took the baby elk back
Speaker 1: to the cabin. I was the lucky one who got
Speaker 1: to hold it. During the ride. My dad slowed the
Speaker 1: UTV down at one point and pointed up ahead, that's
Speaker 1: the mother carcass right there. My mother then suggested that
Speaker 1: maybe the baby ran for safety but ended up trapped
Speaker 1: over the edge. Maybe, said my dad, but there's no
Speaker 1: way it should have landed on that small outcropping and
Speaker 1: not fallen into the ravine below. Dad, do you know
Speaker 1: how we could hear it crying from way out there?
Speaker 1: I asked, I sure don't. A lot of this doesn't
Speaker 1: make any sense at all, he continued. For now, we
Speaker 1: need to figure out what to do with this self.
Speaker 1: We all remained silent the rest of the way back
Speaker 1: to the cabin. Bring the elk inside with you, my
Speaker 1: dad said, as he took the machine out back and
Speaker 1: he parked it, and then little YETI said, Okay, guys,
Speaker 1: to make a longer story shorter. The elk stayed with
Speaker 1: us until it was older, much older. In fact, it
Speaker 1: was too large to stay indoors. Can you imagine a
Speaker 1: long legged elk walking around inside your house. One thing
Speaker 1: became clear over time. The more and more we talked
Speaker 1: about the details of what happened, the more the only
Speaker 1: thing that really made sense didn't make any sense at all.
Speaker 1: The cow elk was killed and the baby needed shelter.
Speaker 1: There's absolutely no way we would have heard its cries
Speaker 1: for help at that distance. We even tested it by
Speaker 1: yelling and playing loud music from the ranger We couldn't
Speaker 1: hear anything from that far out, even at night. So
Speaker 1: what are you saying, one of the guys at the
Speaker 1: table asked, I'm suggesting that the brown haired sysquatch helped
Speaker 1: us find the baby. We also found as lord footprints
Speaker 1: near the ledge when we went back to test sound
Speaker 1: traveling back to our cabin. That one bigfoot came around
Speaker 1: a few years following our return with the calf. It
Speaker 1: was as if he was checking to make sure that
Speaker 1: we had it home safely. Additionally, there's no realistic way
Speaker 1: the baby would have survived the fall twenty five feet
Speaker 1: down to the tiny landing in which we found it on.
Speaker 1: We think that sasquatch was mimicking the baby's cries to
Speaker 1: get our attention, and from a distance we could hear it.
Speaker 1: Then it lured us closer and closer to the ledge,
Speaker 1: where we believe it placed the baby so no predators
Speaker 1: could get at it. The waitress stopped for a breather
Speaker 1: and let it sink in with her customers, who just
Speaker 1: stared at her. Wow, that's an amazing story. But how
Speaker 1: did you get your nickname? One of them asked. The
Speaker 1: waitress just smiled at him as the baby elk needed
Speaker 1: to be taken care of and watched after. My parents
Speaker 1: started calling me little Yetti as I took care of
Speaker 1: the calf like the hairy Man looked after it. Over
Speaker 1: the years, the name just stuck. Her customer started laughing, Yeah,
Speaker 1: that makes sense. Thanks for sharing your story with us,
Speaker 1: No problem, she said, There's more to the story, and
Speaker 1: I have other experiences up at our family cabin, but
Speaker 1: I have to get back to work. Have a great night,
Speaker 1: and thanks for coming in for lunch. My two friends
Speaker 1: and I just sunk deeper in our booth as we
Speaker 1: looked at each other and smiled. What a story. Huh yeah,
Speaker 1: I replied, you think it's true? I mean, do you
Speaker 1: think the sasquatch really led them to the baby elk?
Speaker 1: Why not? She even said, there's more to the story.
Speaker 1: I can't imagine what else happened. I've never run into
Speaker 1: a bigfoot head on, but indirectly, I'm pretty sure that
Speaker 1: I've had two encounters over the years. I am an
Speaker 1: old Marie. I'm eighty years old, and I've hunted and
Speaker 1: camped all my life, from California to Colorado to Kansas
Speaker 1: and back. I was born in Corpus CHRISTI in the
Speaker 1: war years. This is about the start of what we
Speaker 1: call the Valley. And I've hunted the Gulf Coast all
Speaker 1: my life, from white winged doves on the King Ranch
Speaker 1: to whitetailed deer in East Texas to the big mule
Speaker 1: deer in West Texas. When I was younger, I mostly
Speaker 1: hunted by myself, but occasionally I would gather up my
Speaker 1: two brothers with me, more for company than hunting. They
Speaker 1: gave me maybe three chances before they decided that they
Speaker 1: had had enough. They didn't seem to like hunting in
Speaker 1: a rainstorm. How was I to know that? And then
Speaker 1: there was the time I forgot all the groceries. They
Speaker 1: thought I was trying to starve them to death, and
Speaker 1: maybe sleeping on the ground under the pickup bed was
Speaker 1: too much for them. Well, at least I gave them
Speaker 1: a chance. One year I was getting ready to hunt.
Speaker 1: I had a great place I had found. It was
Speaker 1: out of Goodrich, Texas, off a county road which intersected
Speaker 1: with Highway fifty nine. This was before Lake Livingston had
Speaker 1: been developed, and there was a lot of logging going on,
Speaker 1: and you could get on one of these roads and
Speaker 1: ride until you found a place you wanted to hunt,
Speaker 1: and then set up camp and enjoy the outdoors. On
Speaker 1: this one night, I was walking back to camp. I
Speaker 1: had been out all day scouting for robes and scrapes
Speaker 1: before the deer season. There was a big moon out
Speaker 1: and it was lit well, and I kept hearing something
Speaker 1: running in front of me. There was enough light from
Speaker 1: the moon that I didn't need a flashlight to see
Speaker 1: my trail, so I kept it off until I was
Speaker 1: parallel with my camp site, and when I turned it
Speaker 1: on there was a little red fox that had been
Speaker 1: leading the way. I turned into camp and kept going,
Speaker 1: and about this time a scream like none I had
Speaker 1: ever heard before came out of the woods behind my camp.
Speaker 1: Hunting in these woods all my life, I pretty much
Speaker 1: heard every sound that can be made, and I know
Speaker 1: when a squirrel is fussing at me as they moved
Speaker 1: through the heavy brush, to the scream of a bobcat.
Speaker 1: And this sound didn't belong to anything that I had
Speaker 1: ever heard. I couldn't get inside my pickup fast enough,
Speaker 1: and I started it up and the lights on bright,
Speaker 1: and I backed up and scanned the woods, but I
Speaker 1: never saw anything not being for sure what was out there.
Speaker 1: That night was spent inside the truck without any supper.
Speaker 1: The next morning, I got up and fixed some coffee
Speaker 1: and breakfast, and I went back out scouting again, waiting
Speaker 1: for one of my little brothers and his new wife
Speaker 1: to show up. Around noon. They showed up and I
Speaker 1: helped them get their camp areas set up, and after
Speaker 1: a light lunch, I took them out and showed them
Speaker 1: some good places to hunt. Later that evening, we had
Speaker 1: a nice campfire with a good supper, and it was
Speaker 1: very peaceful and with a good cup of coffee, we
Speaker 1: enjoyed each other's company until nine o'clock when we turned in.
Speaker 1: I never said anything to them about the sounds I
Speaker 1: had heard, and I hoped for the best that there
Speaker 1: were no more screams. But there were a few knocks
Speaker 1: that night, but they were in the distance. So we
Speaker 1: had a great two day hunt with no problems. I
Speaker 1: often wondered about what I had heard that night, knowing
Speaker 1: that whatever it was had to move on, But where
Speaker 1: did it go. My next encounter was at Stubblefield Late Campgrounds,
Speaker 1: which is at the north end of Lake Conroe on
Speaker 1: Highway forty five and County Road thirteen seventy five. I
Speaker 1: always get to the campgrounds a couple of days early
Speaker 1: to get camp set up and do a little fishing
Speaker 1: before my son and grandson come up for hunting season.
Speaker 1: I went out before it got to late one evening
Speaker 1: to get some firewood. While I was down the road
Speaker 1: gathering firewood, that sixth sense clicked in and I since
Speaker 1: something was not right, something was wrong, and I was
Speaker 1: in danger. So back inside the pickup I went, and
Speaker 1: then I took off. I left half my firewood in
Speaker 1: the middle of the road. Only twice in my life
Speaker 1: have I been spooked, and these are the two times.
Speaker 1: Sam Houston National Forest has over one hundred and sixty
Speaker 1: three thousand acres to play in with the Lone Star
Speaker 1: Hiking Trail that runs through it, which is over one
Speaker 1: hundred miles, and this is where many sightings have been.
Speaker 1: So when that sixth sense clicked in, this is all
Speaker 1: I could think about. It must have been Bigfoot, and
Speaker 1: it must have been close watching me. The next night,
Speaker 1: I went back to the same place and gathered up
Speaker 1: my wood, and I had no bad feeling, so whatever
Speaker 1: had been there was gone. About the most dangerous animal
Speaker 1: we have in these woods would be a rabid raccoon.
Speaker 1: I've had a friend that's hunted up there for over
Speaker 1: forty years, and he met one while he was out
Speaker 1: hunting one morning without any problems. This sighting was back
Speaker 1: in the nineteen eighties. Now, I've known Ron this many
Speaker 1: years and he's never lied to me, and I truly
Speaker 1: believe every word he said. I know exactly where he
Speaker 1: was hunting that day. And in February, after hunting season
Speaker 1: is over and with the woods clear of guns, I
Speaker 1: have recruited a team that is going with me to
Speaker 1: the place where he had his encounter to see if
Speaker 1: we can find some evidence, or maybe I can get
Speaker 1: me a card playing Scotch drinking buddy. According to Ryan,
Speaker 1: when Bigfoot stepped out, he moved a couple of six
Speaker 1: inch pine trees to the side. He looked at him
Speaker 1: and made two light grunts, and then turned and walked away.
Speaker 1: Ryan said that he was still sitting on his butt
Speaker 1: on the ground, leaning up against this big pine tree
Speaker 1: that he had climbed over when he had slipped down,
Speaker 1: and he never even unslung his gun to watch the
Speaker 1: creature walk away. Well, his hunting was through for that
Speaker 1: and Realizing what had just happened, he decided to hunt
Speaker 1: in one of his other places, not wanting that experience
Speaker 1: ever again, and he says, PS, this is for you.
Speaker 1: It can be read if you choose to. Well, I'm
Speaker 1: gonna go ahead and read it. How can a person
Speaker 1: listen to you and not believe in Bigfoot? Hey, let
Speaker 1: me stop here. Don't believe in Bigfoot because of me?
Speaker 1: I am a skeptic. I'm a total skeptic. I'm not
Speaker 1: saying they don't exist, but I'm not saying they do anyway,
Speaker 1: onto his PostScript, I guess I have gotten older and
Speaker 1: I've gotten braver or maybe not too smart, and that
Speaker 1: is why I'm going out Bigfoot. Honey. I've seen so
Speaker 1: many people go out looking for Bigfoot, and when they
Speaker 1: find him, they run away. If he throws a rock,
Speaker 1: throw one back, and if he growls that, you growl back.
Speaker 1: And if he screams, you need to scream back. You
Speaker 1: need to do these things to see what kind of
Speaker 1: response and reaction you get back. You need to try
Speaker 1: to understand what he's doing and what you're going after
Speaker 1: and trying to accomplish, but also protect yourself just in
Speaker 1: case things take a turn for the worst, and he writes,
Speaker 1: thanks again, Rick, that actually sounds like a guy in
Speaker 1: the Marine Corps. If he screams, actually screamed back. Normally
Speaker 1: it would be if he screams at you killing. I mean,
Speaker 1: Marines are killers. That's what they're trained to do, tear
Speaker 1: stuff up and kill people. This was a great story.
Speaker 1: I ran across it this morning, and I wanted to
Speaker 1: make sure that you guys heard it. I thought it
Speaker 1: was interesting. Eighty year old Marine Corps veteran, I appreciated
Speaker 1: him sending this story to me, Thanks sir. In September
Speaker 1: or October of nineteen seventy, my battalion had been called
Speaker 1: up for deployment to Vietnam. In preparation, we were doing
Speaker 1: some intensive training in the heavily forested areas of Fort Jackson.
Speaker 1: The night was so dark underneath the canopy of old
Speaker 1: growth trees that we could barely see our faces. I
Speaker 1: was on the left side of the main body, and
Speaker 1: the orders came down for my six man squad to
Speaker 1: move ahead of the main body and scout for aggressors
Speaker 1: and booby traps. In the darkness. We had to rely
Speaker 1: on our first generation night scopes to get our bearings.
Speaker 1: We had moved ahead three hundred yards of the main
Speaker 1: body when I spotted a really large tree. I moved
Speaker 1: to it and got into a prone position, and from
Speaker 1: there I could use my night scope to scan ahead.
Speaker 1: I laid there for five minutes, scanning the area, but
Speaker 1: I didn't see anything, so I decided to get up.
Speaker 1: I placed my left hand down to push myself up,
Speaker 1: and all hell broke loose. I had put my hand
Speaker 1: on a bugger's toe. He screamed and roared so loud
Speaker 1: that my ears rang for ten minutes, and I stumbled
Speaker 1: backward at I screamed retreat, and I began firing my
Speaker 1: M sixteen in all directions. Thank god, they were all blanks.
Speaker 1: I was heading backwards as my company was charging toward me,
Speaker 1: and the booker took off, crashing through the woods like
Speaker 1: a t rex, leaving a path of destruction in his retreat.
Speaker 1: Twenty minutes later, four black suburbans pulled up, and some
Speaker 1: guys dressed in black fatigues got out and they took over.
Speaker 1: They took me to the medical tent, where I was
Speaker 1: examined and then grilled about what happened. They told me
Speaker 1: never to tell anyone about what I saw. There would
Speaker 1: be a penalty of a court martial. While I was
Speaker 1: in the tent, the others were taking measurements, looking for
Speaker 1: hair casting tracks, and who knows what else I saw.
Speaker 1: Six heavily armed men had off tracking the big fella,
Speaker 1: but I doubted they would find him. Later, my platoon
Speaker 1: sergeant told me that it had measured eight foot eleven
Speaker 1: and it weighed a thousand pounds. All in all, I
Speaker 1: don't think he was there to hurt anybody. I think
Speaker 1: he was just curious about what we were doing. So
Speaker 1: that's a story, you can that's scary. That's scary in
Speaker 1: one way. I know this guy was. Like I mean,
Speaker 1: when when a train a soldier or marine or somebody
Speaker 1: who's got combat experience just jumps up and starts firing
Speaker 1: their weapon in all directions, they're either real jumpy and green,
Speaker 1: in other words, not trained really well, which I think
Speaker 1: this guy was trained really well, or they're startled so
Speaker 1: much and they anticipate some type of impending doom that
Speaker 1: they just start shooting out a desperation. And it looks
Speaker 1: like that's what this guy did. Now, I'm not an
Speaker 1: expert on these things. And who knows, who knows why.
Speaker 1: But in another way, you can look at it as
Speaker 1: kind of a funny thing. I mean, if you could
Speaker 1: kind of step back and look at it like you're
Speaker 1: watching a movie, that'd be kind of funny. But at
Speaker 1: either rate, Bill, thank you for the story. Is really good.
Speaker 1: I like the way you put it together. I don't
Speaker 1: know if you meant it to be funny, but it
Speaker 1: was great. It was really great. Thanks. It was a
Speaker 1: crisp southern Vermont morning in November of twenty nineteen. Rifle
Speaker 1: season was in swing and I was a new hunter,
Speaker 1: and I was out scouting fresh spots to hunt. I
Speaker 1: found a beautiful piece of state land off Route seven
Speaker 1: that was the perfect habitat for whitetail, so I decided
Speaker 1: to check it out. I walked slowly into the woods,
Speaker 1: eagerly stalking the whitetail I knew had to be there,
Speaker 1: and enjoying the peaceful forest surrounding me. Not more than
Speaker 1: a few yards in, my enthusiasm disintegrated into an uncomfortable
Speaker 1: feeling of being watched. A few more steps and I
Speaker 1: began to feel as though someone was following me as well.
Speaker 1: It was unnerving unwilling to let this feeling ruin my hunt,
Speaker 1: I shook it off and I kept going. When I
Speaker 1: came to a point where the hardwoods met the massive
Speaker 1: patch of pines, though I couldn't help but think that
Speaker 1: it was the perfect place for someone to be watching me.
Speaker 1: The rows of pines stretched on for what looked like forever.
Speaker 1: Anyone could easily slip in and out of the rows
Speaker 1: and hide behind the trees that could move closer or
Speaker 1: farther away, undetected behind the incredible shroud. I still didn't
Speaker 1: let it stop me. Though I was determined to get
Speaker 1: my first buck. I didn't think the deer would be
Speaker 1: in those pines, so I stayed on the line that
Speaker 1: separated them from the hard woods and continued at a
Speaker 1: slow pace. The sudden crack of a few limbs breaking
Speaker 1: stopped me short as a thud shook the ground beneath me.
Speaker 1: It was as if someone had dropped a bag of
Speaker 1: concrete from the top of one of those trees, letting
Speaker 1: it free fall to the earth with a resounding smack.
Speaker 1: Startled and with my guard up, I stopped and listened.
Speaker 1: The woods had gone still at the moment of impact,
Speaker 1: crushed under a roaring silence for more than half a minute.
Speaker 1: I looked over to where I heard the thud and
Speaker 1: saw a huge, blackish brown figure sprinting through the pines
Speaker 1: on two legs. He was leaving a trail of small,
Speaker 1: snapped and broken limbs in its wake. It was enough.
Speaker 1: I was terrified now. I abandoned my hunt and got
Speaker 1: out of the woods as fast as I could. I
Speaker 1: was pushed along by my primal fear and the need
Speaker 1: to be safe. I have been back to those woods
Speaker 1: a handful of times. I even ventured through the pines,
Speaker 1: but I've never seen or heard anything like I did
Speaker 1: that day. You know how people react to these kinds
Speaker 1: of stories, So I kept this to myself. And this
Speaker 1: story is absolutely true, and I want you to know
Speaker 1: that I feel much better having written it all out.
Speaker 1: It's a relief to be able to share it with someone.
Speaker 1: Thank you for that. Four