Speaker 1: I'm a full blooded Cherokee Indian, and my father and
Speaker 1: my grandfather always told me never to run from trouble.
Speaker 2: That's why when my father saw.
Speaker 1: A bigfoot through his night scope and he told me
Speaker 1: to stay out of the woods, I sat myself down
Speaker 1: by the fire and I waited for it to come
Speaker 1: to camp and introduce itself. Now here's my story. In
Speaker 1: nineteen eighty six, I went hunting with my father in
Speaker 1: Nevada to a place called White House Reservoir. We drove
Speaker 1: our camper trailer there on a n ice day when
Speaker 1: the weather was pleasant not too cold. We always cooked
Speaker 1: out in the area where we were going to hunt.
Speaker 1: We built a healthy log fire and enjoyed the area.
Speaker 1: Everything was going fine until about two thirty in the
Speaker 1: morning when the dog started going crazy. I went outside
Speaker 1: and poked around the remains of our fire to see
Speaker 1: if maybe an animal had come into our camp, and
Speaker 1: I couldn't see anything but a smell of something awful.
Speaker 1: I mean, it's tank and this dog, who would normally
Speaker 1: jump outside at any chance, wouldn't come close to the door.
Speaker 1: The only way to get him outside at that point
Speaker 1: was to push his butt out the door. But then
Speaker 1: he just ran underneath the trailer and he came up
Speaker 1: through the floorboards. That's when I knew something was wrong.
Speaker 1: I could hear something moving around close to our camp,
Speaker 1: but in the darkness surrounding the campfire, I couldn't see anything.
Speaker 1: I called to my father inside the trailer, and I
Speaker 1: asked him to get his night scope out see if
Speaker 1: he could see anything. He looked through the scope, looked
Speaker 1: around the camp from the door of the trailer. Then
Speaker 1: he looked me right in the eyes. Don't go a
Speaker 1: step further, he whispered, what's up? I ask him, Just
Speaker 1: trust me, don't go any further. Don't go in the woods.
Speaker 1: Do you hear me? Yes, sir, I said, always listened
Speaker 1: to my father, so I did as he said, but
Speaker 1: I didn't go inside. I put another log on the
Speaker 1: fire and I sat down, and I stayed up till
Speaker 1: around four in the morning, looking around and listening to
Speaker 1: the strained silence of the night, waiting for whatever the
Speaker 1: creature was to make an appearance. It never did show
Speaker 1: itself to me, but I remember at one point, all
Speaker 1: the sounds of nature started up at once, like they
Speaker 1: had all been hiding and holding their breath until the
Speaker 1: monster in the woods went away. When daylight crept over
Speaker 1: our camp, I went inside and got some sleep. A
Speaker 1: couple of hours later, I went back outside and saw tracks,
Speaker 1: and I measured nineteen inches long and twelve inches wide
Speaker 1: all around the trailer. I told my father, but he
Speaker 1: didn't want to talk about it, so I pressed him
Speaker 1: on until he told me what he saw in the scope.
Speaker 1: He finally gave in and told me he saw something
Speaker 1: big moving out there in the darkness, through the forest
Speaker 1: and trying to hide between trees, but he said that
Speaker 1: I didn't need to worry myself over it. Well, I
Speaker 1: saw the footprints with my own eyes, and I smelled
Speaker 1: that famous horrible smell you hear about, and I heard
Speaker 1: the seriousness in my proud father's voice when he warned
Speaker 1: me not to go any further. And I saw that
Speaker 1: dog act like it was scared for its life. I'm
Speaker 1: positive it was a bigfoot out there, which, in my
Speaker 1: humble opinion, is something we should have been worried about.
Speaker 1: I used to be a mountaineering guy, and I hiked
Speaker 1: a lot in Arkansas, where I'm from. I remember hearing
Speaker 1: heavy footed people walk around my campsite at night, but
Speaker 1: I always assumed they were nearby campers getting up to
Speaker 1: use the bathroom. After several unusual experiences, though, I started
Speaker 1: to become more convinced about the bigfoot subject. I was
Speaker 1: hiking around mina ark Saw in bear country with a friend.
Speaker 1: We were going along when we both noticed that the
Speaker 1: trail had become eerily silent. It was so silent that
Speaker 1: my ears started to rain. Well.
Speaker 2: I thought it was cool, but as we went to
Speaker 2: bed that night, I was kept awake by the sound
Speaker 2: of something massive walking in the forest around us. Naturally,
Speaker 2: I was alarmed, thinking it might be a bear. We
Speaker 2: both sat up and turned on our headlamps and looked around,
Speaker 2: ready to see a bear in the light, but there
Speaker 2: was nothing there. Neither of us saw anything but a forest.
Speaker 2: I will never forget it. It was too loud of
Speaker 2: a sound and too close to our camp for us
Speaker 2: not to see what it was. None of it made sense.
Speaker 2: A couple of years ago, while I was hunting on
Speaker 2: a friend's property, I was outside getting the fire going
Speaker 2: late at night when I heard a loud and long woop.
Speaker 2: It was such an unnatural sound to hear coming out
Speaker 2: of the dark that it startled me. My flashlight on
Speaker 2: and looked around for whatever person was playing a trick
Speaker 2: on me, but I saw nothing. Just as I started
Speaker 2: to relax, I heard a loud growl come from the
Speaker 2: same spot in the dark. Well, my courage left me
Speaker 2: at that moment, and I quickly retreated to the cabin.
Speaker 2: My friend and I came out together a little while later,
Speaker 2: but we didn't hear another sound. Later that weekend, my
Speaker 2: friend said that there had been another strange call coming
Speaker 2: from the woods. It sounded like something huge had pounced
Speaker 2: on an animal and killed it. Now, that's not such
Speaker 2: a strange thing to hear out in the while, but
Speaker 2: my friend swore there was something unnatural about it. Another time,
Speaker 2: I was driving down the Interstate and I was about
Speaker 2: to pass over a country lane in the middle of nowhere,
Speaker 2: and as I approached, I saw two men walking down
Speaker 2: the center of the lane. They were black as night
Speaker 2: from head to toe, and they were huge. Together they
Speaker 2: would have taken up half the road if they were
Speaker 2: standing shouldered shoulder, which put them at at least three
Speaker 2: feet wide each. Unlike most people, I was not looking
Speaker 2: for bigfoot signs, and I didn't believe anything like this
Speaker 2: existed at the time. But that said, I do not
Speaker 2: doubt that a bigfoot could have encountered me during those years.
Speaker 2: I just know I would not have been observant enough
Speaker 2: to see it. In nineteen eighty I was a twelve
Speaker 2: year old kid growing wild in the mountains of Montana.
Speaker 2: Our home was thirty miles outside of Missoula, nestled smack
Speaker 2: in the middle of the woods. My best friend Ron
Speaker 2: lived two miles east, and his place was practically my
Speaker 2: second home. I'd often get off the bus at his
Speaker 2: house or rush back home, grab my gear, and head
Speaker 2: straight to his house. Our kind of normal meant being
Speaker 2: latchkey kids in the wilderness. We'd pack sandwiches and grab
Speaker 2: a fishing pole. We'd take a twenty two rifle or
Speaker 2: it's sixteen gage shotgun, and we'd head out fall Afternoons
Speaker 2: were for hunting ducks and grouse, and we had our
Speaker 2: fair share of close encounters, like that time a mama
Speaker 2: bear charged us. It's not something we mentioned to our parents.
Speaker 2: Winter meant trapping season. Our path to riches for two
Speaker 2: twelve year olds, that is, we were all over the
Speaker 2: west fork of Petty Creek and beyond, snaring coyotes, foxes, raccoons, skunks, weasels,
Speaker 2: and muskrats. Bobcats were our golden ticket, though, when we
Speaker 2: raked in enough cash to buy motorcycles, school clothes, and
Speaker 2: even squirrel away some for college. In the winter of
Speaker 2: nineteen eighty, we thought we had encountered a sasquatch. We
Speaker 2: didn't have TV, and we knew zilch about bigfoot. We
Speaker 2: were laying a trap line on Fish Creek when we
Speaker 2: heard a chuffing noise, kind of like gibbering sounds. Naturally,
Speaker 2: we crashed through the willows to investigate. On the creek bank,
Speaker 2: we saw something swaying behind the tamarack, pine and raspberry bushes.
Speaker 2: It was too tall for a black bear, we thought,
Speaker 2: and without warning, Ron fired his shotgun into the air.
Speaker 2: This thing bolted and we stood there and adrenaline was pumping.
Speaker 2: I thought it was a cinnamon colored black bear, but Ron, ever,
Speaker 2: the comedian, insisted it was an orangutan. In Montana, sure Ron,
Speaker 2: spring brought early bear season, and we decided to hunt
Speaker 2: at our softswatch sighting spot. We set off at three
Speaker 2: am and reached Fish Creek by four and set up
Speaker 2: our stands, and by noon I was in my stand
Speaker 2: bottled up like a human burrito. It was a round dusk.
Speaker 2: When a rock came flying at me and smacked my chest,
Speaker 2: I figured it was Ron. Who else could it have been.
Speaker 2: My mind wandered to the strange pile of rocks I
Speaker 2: had seen on the other side side of the bank
Speaker 2: earlier that day. Someone had built it there intentionally. And
Speaker 2: right then another rock whizzed by, followed by a muffled laughter.
Speaker 2: I laughed to myself, and I thought, this is war.
Speaker 2: Ron must have built the rock pile so he could
Speaker 2: move and through without me being able to pin him down.
Speaker 2: And I climbed down from the tree stand and I
Speaker 2: yelled at him, and I promptly got hit by more rocks. Well,
Speaker 2: this made me mad. He wasn't even giving me proper
Speaker 2: time to arm myself. So I grabbed some rocks and
Speaker 2: I retaliated. My first rock zipped through the brush and
Speaker 2: had hit something, And then came the roar. It would
Speaker 2: have blown my hair back if I'd have been any closer.
Speaker 2: I was scared, but I stood my ground, And as
Speaker 2: I continued to pelt rocks at the unforeseen foe, a
Speaker 2: bigfoot family emerged from the bushes. There was a big
Speaker 2: one who would have towered over even my tallest uncle.
Speaker 2: And he was flying by two juveniles, and all three
Speaker 2: of them were throwing rocks at me. I threw the
Speaker 2: last of my rocks, and I stood there staring at
Speaker 2: them with my heart pounding in terror. And just then
Speaker 2: a gunshot rang out, and the bigfoots fled, and there
Speaker 2: was Ron standing a few yards away. Man, I couldn't
Speaker 2: figure out all that noise. He said, what were those things?
Speaker 2: I think there were bigfoots. I stammered, those were definitely bigfoots.
Speaker 2: Ron agreed. We packed up as fast as we could
Speaker 2: and we headed home, but the eerie feeling of being
Speaker 2: watched lingered. With our adrenaline still high from the encounter,
Speaker 2: we couldn't stop talking about it, and over the next
Speaker 2: few days we couldn't shake the incident from our minds.
Speaker 2: Every time we were out in the woods, we found
Speaker 2: ourselves glancing over our shoulders, half expecting to see those
Speaker 2: towering figures emerging from the trees. One afternoon, while we
Speaker 2: were fishing at Petty Creek, Ron brought it up again.
Speaker 2: We should go back, he said, not to hunt, but
Speaker 2: to see if we can find any evidence. Are you nuts,
Speaker 2: I said, we barely made it out last time. I
Speaker 2: was protesting, though part of me was just as curious. Eventually,
Speaker 2: my curiosity got the better of me and we planned
Speaker 2: another trip. This time, we armed ourselves with more than
Speaker 2: just rocks. We had our cameras, hoping to capture proof
Speaker 2: of our encounter. We set off early one Saturday morning,
Speaker 2: retracing our steps to the spot where it all happened.
Speaker 2: As we approached the area, an eerie silence fell over
Speaker 2: the forest. Even the birds seemed to have taken the
Speaker 2: day off. We moved forward carefully, I scanning the surrounding
Speaker 2: for any signs of movement, when Ron stopped and pointed
Speaker 2: at some large, fresh humanoid prints leading into the denser
Speaker 2: part of the woods. With followed the tracks, with our
Speaker 2: hearts pounding. Every crack of a twig or rustle of
Speaker 2: leaves made us jump. After a while, the tracks led
Speaker 2: us to a small stream, and there on the other
Speaker 2: side of the stream were the bigfoots. We crouched behind
Speaker 2: some bushes and tried to hide, but it was no use.
Speaker 2: One of the juveniles saw us and yelped, alerting the others.
Speaker 2: The big one turned and faced us with his eyes narrowed,
Speaker 2: and I felt my heart nearly burst out of my chest.
Speaker 2: Ron we gotta go now, I whispered. The big One
Speaker 2: took a step toward us, and we bolted back through
Speaker 2: the woods with the sound of pounding footsteps behind us.
Speaker 2: We didn't tear look back. After what felt like an eternity,
Speaker 2: we burst out into the road and scrambled onto our
Speaker 2: dirt bikes and kicked up the earth as we gunned
Speaker 2: the throttles. Weeks later, we received a mysterious letter from
Speaker 2: an anonymous observer containing sketches of the Bigfoot family and
Speaker 2: the keep the secret. They mean you no harm. Well,
Speaker 2: that wouldn't be hard. No one would believe us anyway.
Speaker 2: Over the years, Ron and I would often revisit that day,
Speaker 2: especially during our summer camping trips. We'd sit by the
Speaker 2: fire and recount every detail, and our friends hanging on
Speaker 2: to our every word. They'd laugh and they'd call us crazy,
Speaker 2: but we didn't think it was funny because we knew
Speaker 2: the truth. We had seen something extraordinary, something that changed
Speaker 2: our lives forever. Ron and I were like chain link
Speaker 2: until we had high school, and then we sort of
Speaker 2: grew apart. The last time I talked to him, he
Speaker 2: had just retired from a long Army career. I had
Speaker 2: gone into the Marine Corps and then later went into
Speaker 2: law enforcement. I eventually returned to the spot where it
Speaker 2: all began, hoping to find some sort of evidence of
Speaker 2: the Squatch family, hoping they were still around, some sort
Speaker 2: of evidence to take me back to that time Ron
Speaker 2: and I had our lives forever changed. I never found anything,
Speaker 2: but on my way out of the woods that day,
Speaker 2: the familiar feeling of fear made its way up my spine,
Speaker 2: and I found myself looking over my shoulder just the same.
Speaker 2: Thank you for listening to this podcast a little shorter
Speaker 2: than others. Some people say they like the shorter ones,
Speaker 2: some people say they like the longer ones. So I
Speaker 2: never know how long to make them. These shorter ones,
Speaker 2: probably for the next two to three weeks, will fit
Speaker 2: in good with my work schedule because I can knock
Speaker 2: short podcasts out in the morning and get back to work.
Speaker 2: So it's going to work good, and we get these
Speaker 2: great stories. I love them. These are encounters from real
Speaker 2: people telling real stories that really happened to them or
Speaker 2: they claimed they did. And I hope you guys are
Speaker 2: enjoying them as much as I am. That said, we'll
Speaker 2: see guys on the next one.