Speaker 1: Okay, I just opened my door because it's a nice
Speaker 1: spring day, get some warm wind blowing through here, and
Speaker 1: I'm covered up with chickens. Oh, they just quieted down. Okay, Hey, guys,
Speaker 1: I've been going about a week. I've been down with COVID,
Speaker 1: believe it or not, and man, this is the third
Speaker 1: time I've had it, and it really got me down.
Speaker 1: But I'm back with a really good story. I really
Speaker 1: hope you guys enjoy this. It's kind of long, it's
Speaker 1: a little drawn out, but I'm going to read the
Speaker 1: whole thing because I think it's a good story, So
Speaker 1: I hope you enjoy it. All. Right, here we go.
Speaker 1: Growing up, I was into all things outdoors, hunting and
Speaker 1: fishing and survival and all of that. My dad nurtured
Speaker 1: my love for hunting. But hunting the season is just that,
Speaker 1: it's seasonal. What's a boy to do the rest of
Speaker 1: the year. My dad said I could do my part
Speaker 1: in being a good conservationist by controlling the populations of
Speaker 1: nuisance animals like blackbirds and crows. So I bought a
Speaker 1: crow call and I went at it. The way it goes.
Speaker 1: Growing up, you tend to make friends with people who
Speaker 1: have similar interests. Had a buddy at school who was
Speaker 1: into hunting as well. One day he told me of
Speaker 1: something that was going on around his neighborhood. There had
Speaker 1: been some sightings of what was described as a big
Speaker 1: black cat or a panther, So of course we were
Speaker 1: going to come up with a plan to hunt it down.
Speaker 1: We never did follow through. It was just one of
Speaker 1: those things that kids fantasize about. The supposed sightings were
Speaker 1: one of the things that you want to believe, but
Speaker 1: deep down you know that this kid is probably making
Speaker 1: up the whole story, but you entertain the idea anyway
Speaker 1: because you want it to be true. Hold on, let
Speaker 1: me run this hen out of here. Yeah. Shoot, my
Speaker 1: grandparents lived in the Seymour, Tennessee, which is right on
Speaker 1: the Knox County line. That damn chicken came right back
Speaker 1: in here. Yeah yeah, yeah, yet, all right, sorry about that.
Speaker 1: It's like old times. My grandparents lived in Seymour, Tennessee,
Speaker 1: which is right on the Knox County line and close
Speaker 1: to where my friends lived. I stayed with them one
Speaker 1: weekend and was out early Saturday morning sitting on a
Speaker 1: fence line that overlooked a field, and I was doing
Speaker 1: my best to call in some crows. I had been
Speaker 1: there an hour, not having any luck getting anything within
Speaker 1: shotgun range. Most people don't know it, but crows are
Speaker 1: very smart and then they can see well. I was
Speaker 1: looking out across the field when I noticed something coming
Speaker 1: through the opposite fence line about two hundred yards away.
Speaker 1: At first I thought it was someone's dog, and as
Speaker 1: it was going up to a brush pile along the
Speaker 1: fence and sniffing for game, it was jet black, and
Speaker 1: in my mind it was a neighbor's lab about hunting
Speaker 1: around sit. It started working its way up the intersecting
Speaker 1: fence line where I was sitting at the corner. I
Speaker 1: was hidden by hunting suckles that had overtaken the fence.
Speaker 1: As it started getting closer, something started nagging at me
Speaker 1: that something wasn't right. I guess the first thing that
Speaker 1: triggered this feeling was its tail. It wasn't wagging or
Speaker 1: bobbing straight out like a happy gold lucky dog does
Speaker 1: when they're hunting. The tail was long and skinny and
Speaker 1: kind of had a slithering movement. Then I noticed the ears.
Speaker 1: They weren't long and floppy, but shortened upright and the
Speaker 1: next thing I noticed was what sent me into a
Speaker 1: tail spin. It was the eyes that were yellowish green
Speaker 1: with black pupils. This thing was not a dog. My
Speaker 1: mind started trying to explain what I was seeing, but
Speaker 1: the best I could come up with was that someone's
Speaker 1: exotic pet had escaped. Being as smart like, I stood
Speaker 1: up and I yelled at it. Here, kitty kitty, Here,
Speaker 1: kitty kitty, I shouted, Well, the cat jerked and said
Speaker 1: toward me, and then turned and took off like a shot,
Speaker 1: and it ducked under a fence and it was gone.
Speaker 1: I was left sitting there questioning myself as to whether
Speaker 1: or not this actually had happened. Years later, I was
Speaker 1: taking my little cousin to his hunter safety course and
Speaker 1: someone brought up a question about black panther sightings that
Speaker 1: were by this time all over the state. The TWR
Speaker 1: officer gave his rehearsed answer, which really didn't do his
Speaker 1: profession any favors in my opinion. He said, in just
Speaker 1: about every class I do, someone says they've seen one,
Speaker 1: so I don't want to hear it. You don't see it,
Speaker 1: and they don't exist, he said, as fog Horn. Leghorn
Speaker 1: said that boy. I say that boy is educated far
Speaker 1: beyond his intelligence. We do have bobcats, codes foxes, and
Speaker 1: other predators. Why wouldn't there be enough squirrels, rabbits and
Speaker 1: vons and the like to sustain a small population of
Speaker 1: big cats. It's just common sense, really. I just wanted
Speaker 1: to share this story as I can relate in a
Speaker 1: small way how people feel when they are told they
Speaker 1: didn't see a sosquatch when they know good and well
Speaker 1: that they did. Thanks for the indulgence, and now for
Speaker 1: my lame bigfoot encounter. When I was in my late twenties,
Speaker 1: I had a couple of real good friends who were
Speaker 1: eating up with turkey hunting about as much as I was.
Speaker 1: Tennessee season is kind of short compared to deer season,
Speaker 1: so when those few weeks rolled around, we tried to
Speaker 1: plan a trip every weekend to make the most of it.
Speaker 1: My buddy's wife would pitch a fit every time we
Speaker 1: were heading out, though, which tended to put a damper
Speaker 1: on the whole thing. One time we had a trip
Speaker 1: planned to go to Big South Fork for a few
Speaker 1: days in camp and turkey hunt and just hang out.
Speaker 1: As expected, when we got to my buddy's house to
Speaker 1: pick him up. The fight was already on. His wife's
Speaker 1: grandfather was in the hospital and she didn't want him
Speaker 1: to go hunting with us. Now, I know it sounds insensitive,
Speaker 1: but in his mind this was just one more of
Speaker 1: her many excuses to keep him on the apron strings. Well,
Speaker 1: I talked her into letting him go, and if things
Speaker 1: got worse with her grandfather, she could call and he
Speaker 1: would come back home right away. I was pretty proud
Speaker 1: of myself because I came up with a solution and
Speaker 1: if she said no to that, well, it just looked
Speaker 1: too much like she was just hard to get along with,
Speaker 1: which she was. One factor I didn't plan on, however,
Speaker 1: was that we drove in one vehicle. Big South Fork
Speaker 1: is pretty vast, and I had found a spot that
Speaker 1: was so far in the boonies that I figured we
Speaker 1: wouldn't be bothered by other hunters. Our camp was at
Speaker 1: the end of a six miles of a narrow, twisting,
Speaker 1: curving rival road that dead ended at an old cemetery.
Speaker 1: It was twenty miles to the nearest town. We were
Speaker 1: so excited about having the spot all to ourselves and
Speaker 1: being able to get away for a guy's trip, and
Speaker 1: we didn't plan on his wife actually calling him to
Speaker 1: come back home. The first morning, we were on birds
Speaker 1: but just couldn't close the deal. And when we returned
Speaker 1: to our camp, we found a female cop waiting for us.
Speaker 1: She didn't say why she was there, but she did say,
Speaker 1: isn't it kind of weird to camp next to a cemetery? Well,
Speaker 1: it doesn't bother us, I say, in my mind, those
Speaker 1: dead folks weren't going anywhere until the Lord returned. Anyway,
Speaker 1: we kind of got the feeling she didn't like us
Speaker 1: being there, but we had a camping permit, so she
Speaker 1: left us alone. Well, now, wouldn't you know it, my
Speaker 1: buddy got the call. His wife's grandfather had gotten a
Speaker 1: little worse. My buddy, whose vehicle we drove in, said
Speaker 1: he would take him back, but that I could stay,
Speaker 1: and since it was so late in the day, it
Speaker 1: meant that he wouldn't be back until the following morning.
Speaker 1: That was okay with me. I didn't mind staying by
Speaker 1: myself there. That all sounded good until dark, and then
Speaker 1: all those werewolf horror movies I shouldn't have watched when
Speaker 1: I was a kid started creeping up on me, and
Speaker 1: it was boring with no one to talk to, so
Speaker 1: I decided to turn in early. I did have my
Speaker 1: turkey gun loaded and sitting beside my sleeping bag, you know,
Speaker 1: just in case. I will also admit that when I
Speaker 1: was a kid, I was infatuated with Bigfoot and I
Speaker 1: read every book from the library that I could get
Speaker 1: my hands on. One of my high school friends and
Speaker 1: I even had a plan to go to the Pacific
Speaker 1: Northwest sometime after graduation and hunt isquatch. Well, that never happened,
Speaker 1: but I would be lying if I said that thoughts
Speaker 1: of the old Skunk Ape didn't cross my mind that
Speaker 1: night as I drifted off to sleep. Sometime later in
Speaker 1: the night, something woke me up. It was a sound
Speaker 1: of something outside my tent moving around. It wasn't a
Speaker 1: small scurrying type noise, but something big and heavy. You
Speaker 1: could hear gravel crunching under the load as whatever it
Speaker 1: was stepping on and the foot rolled forward. I had
Speaker 1: hunted my whole life, and I knew the difference between
Speaker 1: two and four footed things and what they sounded like
Speaker 1: when they walked. This had the cadence of a bipedal movement.
Speaker 1: I knew it was something or someone. My brain cleared
Speaker 1: from the fog of sleep, and I thought that maybe
Speaker 1: my buddy had decided to come back early. But the
Speaker 1: more I thought about it, I would have heard the
Speaker 1: truck pull up, and he would have known better than
Speaker 1: to slink and creep around outside the tent without letting
Speaker 1: me know he was there. He knew me well enough
Speaker 1: to know that I would also have a twelve gage
Speaker 1: in there with me, loaded with three inch magnum turkey loads.
Speaker 1: Plus the fact that I was camped next to a
Speaker 1: cemetery didn't do much in helping me relax. I reached over,
Speaker 1: and he's my shotgun over onto my chest, you know,
Speaker 1: just in case. About the time that I did that,
Speaker 1: I heard whatever it was walk away. The next thing
Speaker 1: I knew, I was awakened by the sound of my
Speaker 1: buddy pulling up in his truck at daylight. I told
Speaker 1: him about my night. We had a good laugh about
Speaker 1: it and went on to finish our trip. No more
Speaker 1: bigfoots or turkeys, unfortunately, but we had a great time
Speaker 1: just being out there. I'll never know what it was,
Speaker 1: but it was the closest I can say I ever
Speaker 1: came to an encounter. When I was growing up, my
Speaker 1: dad owned his own painting business for a little while.
Speaker 1: I worked for him during the summers to earn money
Speaker 1: and keep me out of trouble. I guess at the
Speaker 1: peak of his career. He had a crew of guys
Speaker 1: that worked for him, and one fellow was from Louisiana.
Speaker 1: I was infatuated with Bigfoot as a kid, I guess
Speaker 1: ever since I saw the six million dollar Man and
Speaker 1: Woman episode with Bigfoot in them. Any show or movie
Speaker 1: or book that had to do with Bigfoot, I was
Speaker 1: all about that. This guy from Louisiana found out about
Speaker 1: it and shared his own story with me, And it
Speaker 1: began with his uncle, who was a renowned big game hunter.
Speaker 1: This man had been all over the world to take
Speaker 1: every sort of big game animal known to man. It
Speaker 1: made a living guiding brown bear and Kodiak bear hunts
Speaker 1: in Alaska. So it goes without saying that the man
Speaker 1: was an alpha, a man's man. He was also from
Speaker 1: Louisiana and he had moved back after getting tired of
Speaker 1: his hunting exploits and he needed a break. There was
Speaker 1: a certain swamp in Louisiana that was legendary for bigfoot activity.
Speaker 1: All the locals knew it and considered it as part
Speaker 1: of normal life. They didn't bother this creature, and it
Speaker 1: didn't bother them. And the uncle heard of it, and
Speaker 1: he decided that a bigfoot was one trophy he had
Speaker 1: never taken, so he set out to go into the
Speaker 1: swamp and try to bag himself a sasquatch. They found
Speaker 1: him three days later on the outskirts of the swamp,
Speaker 1: and he was nearly dead. He had had a heart
Speaker 1: attack or a stroke. His gear was gone, and his
Speaker 1: clothes were all torn and ragged. They said it looked
Speaker 1: like he had aged twenty years and his speech was
Speaker 1: slurred from then on from one side of his face
Speaker 1: being paralyzed. It turns out that he had become the
Speaker 1: hunted instead of the hunter, and a bigfoot had nearly
Speaker 1: claimed himself a trophy. His nephew, my dad's employee, decided
Speaker 1: he and a few of his buddies were going to
Speaker 1: go back in for some revenge and possibly bag a
Speaker 1: nice buck. At the same time, it was deer season
Speaker 1: and this particular swamp was also known to be a
Speaker 1: great area for big bucks. I guess everyone being afraid
Speaker 1: to go into the swamp took a little hunting pressure
Speaker 1: off and allowed the deer time to mature. The uncle
Speaker 1: tried to talk him out of going, and he warned him.
Speaker 1: When he was telling the story, he did his best
Speaker 1: impression of his uncle's slurred, stuttered speech. Don't go in there.
Speaker 1: That thing will get you is once alpha man's man.
Speaker 1: Uncle begged. But he looked up to his uncle and thought,
Speaker 1: if he could go in there and get the job done,
Speaker 1: he would be impressed. So he decided to go in
Speaker 1: spite of the warning. The day came when they planned
Speaker 1: on leaving, and they loaded their swamp boats with gear
Speaker 1: and they headed in. He thought, in all reality, a
Speaker 1: bigfoot wouldn't mess with a group of men. In a
Speaker 1: worst case scenario, they would come out of the trip
Speaker 1: with some nice deer and plenty of tall tales that
Speaker 1: they could reminisce about for years to come. But little
Speaker 1: did he know the first night in camp would be
Speaker 1: one to remember. He said, after the tents were all
Speaker 1: set up and it was starting to get dark, the
Speaker 1: bonfire was built and the beer started to flow, and
Speaker 1: a good time was being had by all. Then things changed,
Speaker 1: he said. The swamps were pretty noisy, with frogs and crickets,
Speaker 1: and this one was no different. But all of a sudden,
Speaker 1: an eerie silence fell over the area. Everyone noticed and
Speaker 1: looked at each other, wondering what the hell was going on.
Speaker 1: And that's when the smell hd them. Some god awful
Speaker 1: rank odor filled the area. Now I realized that this
Speaker 1: is a classic symptom of we're about to see sasquatch,
Speaker 1: and most stories happened like this. And I also realized
Speaker 1: I would be really easy to copycat these things and
Speaker 1: fabricate a story. But this was in the middle of
Speaker 1: the eighties, when you couldn't just hop on the internet
Speaker 1: and find out this kind of information. It was also
Speaker 1: before everyone was a researcher and there were groups groups
Speaker 1: around every corner that investigated this kind of stuff. Oh god,
Speaker 1: he is so right. After the foul odor smacked them,
Speaker 1: Bigfoot just walked right into camp. He said. There was
Speaker 1: a brief moment when everyone froze, and he could remember
Speaker 1: the orange glow of the firelight reflecting off its eyes,
Speaker 1: and then mass pandemonium erupted. Guys were running and diving
Speaker 1: in boats, and shots were fired at the animal and
Speaker 1: blind panic. It was truly a scene to behold. But
Speaker 1: everyone made it to the swamp boats and the chaos,
Speaker 1: and they lit out of there, some of them still
Speaker 1: in their underwear. He said he didn't know if it
Speaker 1: ran off as soon as the first shot was fired,
Speaker 1: or if it was ever even hit with a round.
Speaker 1: He was too busy trying to get down to where
Speaker 1: the boats were beached. They did go back a couple
Speaker 1: of days after they had gathered their courage up to
Speaker 1: see if they could get their gear. He said. The
Speaker 1: camp site was totally destroyed, but they salvaged what they could.
Speaker 1: They left in a hurry, and they never went back. Now,
Speaker 1: you could write this off as a guy trying to
Speaker 1: impress the boss's kid or just humoring me when he
Speaker 1: found out I was into bigfoot lore. But this guy
Speaker 1: was a true believer. My dad told me later that
Speaker 1: a couple of times some of the other guys on
Speaker 1: the crew had teased him or told him that bigfoot
Speaker 1: was just a bunch of crap and that this guy
Speaker 1: would go ballistic. He would even call them outside to fight.
Speaker 1: He was that serious about the subject. You typically don't
Speaker 1: do that if you know you were telling a lie
Speaker 1: or you don't believe it. Yourself. Heck, I believe there's
Speaker 1: something to it, but I wouldn't fight over it. Thanks
Speaker 1: for what you do on your channel. I look forward
Speaker 1: to the stories every time. God blessed. The man's name
Speaker 1: is James Man. What a great set of stories. This
Speaker 1: is so well written and put together. This intriguing secondhand story,
Speaker 1: the black cat, the Bigfoot, the steps around, just everything
Speaker 1: about it was great and I really appreciate James sending this.
Speaker 1: It's a pleasure to read these kind of stories. Hey,
Speaker 1: I wanted to let y'all know real quick that this
Speaker 1: year at the Smoky Mountain Bigfoot Conference, I have not
Speaker 1: been in two years because every time I go, I
Speaker 1: lose money. I buy all this these souvenirs and stuff
Speaker 1: to say, you have to sell something at that place
Speaker 1: or they won't let you have a booth. But I'd
Speaker 1: rent the booth, get hotel rooms. The last time I went,
Speaker 1: I brought my family, my wife, my granddaughter, my daughter
Speaker 1: in law, got all them rooms, bought all that stuff
Speaker 1: for the conference, and I lost about twenty five hundred bucks.
Speaker 1: And I swore then that I wasn't going to do
Speaker 1: it again. But they for the first time they called
Speaker 1: me and They asked if I would come and speak
Speaker 1: at the Bigfoot conference, and I said, no, I don't.
Speaker 1: I don't. I don't do that. I'm not big on
Speaker 1: standing up in front of people. I mean, I'll do it,
Speaker 1: but I don't. Uh. It's just not something that lights
Speaker 1: me up. And then they I said, well, if you
Speaker 1: did have me speak, what would you what's the what
Speaker 1: do you want me to talk about? They said, well,
Speaker 1: we want you to moderate a discussion between researchers. I said, man,
Speaker 1: are you crazy? Speak for researchers hate me. They think
Speaker 1: I make up all these stories and they think, uh, anyway,
Speaker 1: it's it's pretty common knowledge in the bigfoot world, which
Speaker 1: I'm not in that the Bigfoot researchers, the real serious ones,
Speaker 1: they can't stand me. And I said, I'm the worst
Speaker 1: person in the world to put up there between researchers.
Speaker 1: And he said, well, we have another thing. It's kind
Speaker 1: of a lesser responsibility, but you could kind of host
Speaker 1: when people get up and tell their own encounters. I said, man,
Speaker 1: that's right up my alley. This person had never listened
Speaker 1: to my podcast, so they don't know what I do.
Speaker 1: I said, that's exactly what I do on my podcast share,
Speaker 1: I share encounter stories by real people, and I said
Speaker 1: I would love to do that. And I said that
Speaker 1: after he said they would cover my hotel room. I
Speaker 1: think that's all they're covering. But still that's enough. You know,
Speaker 1: my wife's not coming. It's just going to be me.
Speaker 1: I'm trying to find somebody to go with me and
Speaker 1: sit at my booth with me so when I get
Speaker 1: up and speak, they can man my booth. And I've
Speaker 1: asked Da Roberts. I've asked Jeff Crawford, a couple of
Speaker 1: authors that you all know of that I've read on
Speaker 1: this channel before, and maybe one or both of them
Speaker 1: will show up. I hope they do. But I'm just
Speaker 1: going to be there by myself, and it's just a
Speaker 1: one day event. I don't I can't. It's at the
Speaker 1: end of July. Just Google or search engine Smoky Mountain
Speaker 1: Bigfoot Conference, Gatlinburg, Tennessee. You can buy tickets there. They
Speaker 1: sent me an email they wanted me to send a
Speaker 1: picture of myself to put on their flyer, and I
Speaker 1: haven't done it yet. Their flyers probably already done, but
Speaker 1: I'm just so slow about that stuff. I'm probably not
Speaker 1: the most responsible guy in the world with that stuff.
Speaker 1: But anyway, I'm going to be there. I'm going to
Speaker 1: host that as far as I know, unless they have
Speaker 1: changed their mind. I haven't heard from them since May,
Speaker 1: no since February. Maybe they've heard somebody else. I don't know.
Speaker 1: I'll get in touch them this week, but right now,
Speaker 1: as it stands, today is April fourteen, twenty twenty five.
Speaker 1: Gotta file taxes tomorrow, don't y'all forget that. But as
Speaker 1: of April fourteen, twenty twenty, twenty twenty five, I'm gonna
Speaker 1: be at the Smoky Mountain Bigfoot Conference in Gatlinburg and
Speaker 1: late you live twenty twenty five, So if you can
Speaker 1: be there, I'd love to see you. And I'm gonna
Speaker 1: have a booth. Come by and say hi. I'm gonna
Speaker 1: have some things to sell. I'm not sure what, but
Speaker 1: probably not much because I don't want to lose money
Speaker 1: on it. Anyway, I just want to let y'all know that.
Speaker 1: So I appreciate you listening to the podcast, and we
Speaker 1: will see you on the next one. Appreciate you