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<v Speaker 1>Now one of your putty. I got a string going

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<v Speaker 1>on here, something just cause my dog. Something killed your dog.

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<v Speaker 1>My dog. We're flying through the air over the tree.

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<v Speaker 1>I don't know how it did it, Okay, Damn, I'm

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<v Speaker 1>really confused. All I saw was my dog coming over

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<v Speaker 1>the fence and he was dead. And once you hit

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<v Speaker 1>the ground like, I didn't see any cars. All I

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<v Speaker 1>saw was my dog coming over the fence.

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<v Speaker 2>Set.

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<v Speaker 1>What are you putting? We got some wonder or something

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<v Speaker 1>crawling around out here? Did you see what it was

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<v Speaker 1>or was it was? Standing enough? I'm out here looking

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<v Speaker 1>through the window now and I don't see anything. I

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<v Speaker 1>don't want to go outside. Jesus Quice, you better hello,

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<v Speaker 1>get the body out here. Quin, I'm out there.

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<v Speaker 2>I thought of a.

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<v Speaker 1>Bench about tech forty nine. I don't know. Easy annount there, Yeah,

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<v Speaker 1>I'm walking right. Hey.

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<v Speaker 2>Before we start tonight's episode, listener discretion is advised. This

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<v Speaker 2>story contains violence, death, and subject matter that may not

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<v Speaker 2>be suitable for younger listeners or anyone sensitive to this

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<v Speaker 2>kind of content. With that said, let's get into it.

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<v Speaker 2>I got an email a few weeks back that stopped

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<v Speaker 2>me cold. I mean, I've received thousands of emails over

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<v Speaker 2>the years from people sharing their encounters, their sightings, their

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<v Speaker 2>strange experiences out in the woods, and I'm grateful for

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<v Speaker 2>every single one of them. But every now and then

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<v Speaker 2>one comes across my desk that just hits different, one

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<v Speaker 2>that makes the hair on the back of my neck

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<v Speaker 2>stand up, not just because of what happened, but because

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<v Speaker 2>of what it implies, because of the doors it opens

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<v Speaker 2>in your mind that you can never quite close again.

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<v Speaker 2>This was one of those emails. A man who wrote

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<v Speaker 2>to me asked that I call him Matt. That's not

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<v Speaker 2>his real name, and I think by the time you

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<v Speaker 2>hear this story, you'll understand exactly why he doesn't want

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<v Speaker 2>his identity out there. Matt's a veteran. He served multiple

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<v Speaker 2>combat tours in Afghanistan, and the man he's going to

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<v Speaker 2>tell you about served right alongside him. They were brothers

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<v Speaker 2>in the truest sense of the word, the kind of

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<v Speaker 2>bond that only forms when you've bled together, when you've

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<v Speaker 2>held security on a rooftop and Kandahar Province at three

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<v Speaker 2>in the morning while tracers light up the sky around you,

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<v Speaker 2>when you've carried a wounded buddy to a Metavac, bird

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<v Speaker 2>under fire. That kind of bond, the kind that means

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<v Speaker 2>when a man tells you something, even something that sounds impossible,

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<v Speaker 2>you listen and you believe him. Before I read Matt's

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<v Speaker 2>account to you, I want to say something. Matt told

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<v Speaker 2>me in his email that he listens to all of

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<v Speaker 2>my shows. He said he heard me say that if

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<v Speaker 2>you've had an experience, or if you know someone who has,

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<v Speaker 2>to email in and share it. He said that although

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<v Speaker 2>this isn't his experience directly, he wants people to know

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<v Speaker 2>that it happened. He said, and I'm paraphrasing here, that

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<v Speaker 2>too many things get buried, too many stories get silenced,

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<v Speaker 2>and he's tired of good men carrying secrets that eat

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<v Speaker 2>them alive. He wants this out there, and I respect

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<v Speaker 2>that more than I can say. So let me share

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<v Speaker 2>Matt's story with you, and I'll let you decide what

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<v Speaker 2>you think. Matt writes, Hey, I'm not sure exactly how

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<v Speaker 2>to start this, so I'll just get into it. I've

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<v Speaker 2>been going back and forth about whether to send this

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<v Speaker 2>email for over a year now. I keep coming back

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<v Speaker 2>to it, and I keep hearing your voice in my

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<v Speaker 2>head saying you want to hear from people who have stories,

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<v Speaker 2>and I think that means something. I think it means

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<v Speaker 2>this needs to be told. I've been listening to your

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<v Speaker 2>shows for a couple of years now, all of them,

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<v Speaker 2>the Bigfoot encounters, the backwoods stories, all of it. My

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<v Speaker 2>wife thinks I'm losing it by the way she hears

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<v Speaker 2>your shows coming through my earbuds when I'm doing yard

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<v Speaker 2>work or tinkering in the garage, and she just shakes

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<v Speaker 2>her head at me. But she doesn't know what I know.

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<v Speaker 2>She doesn't know this story. Nobody does except me and

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<v Speaker 2>the man who told it to me. And I reckon

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<v Speaker 2>whatever nameless people were involved in the events I'm about

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<v Speaker 2>to describe. I've heard you say more than once that

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<v Speaker 2>if somebody has a story, you want to hear it. Well,

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<v Speaker 2>I've got one. It's not mine, but it's real. And

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<v Speaker 2>the man who told it to me is one of

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<v Speaker 2>the most solid, dependable, honest men I've ever known in

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<v Speaker 2>my life. I'd trust him with my life. I have

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<v Speaker 2>trusted him with my life more times than I can count,

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<v Speaker 2>in places most people couldn't find on a map, the

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<v Speaker 2>kind of places where trusting the wrong person gets you

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<v Speaker 2>sent home in a flag draped box. I served in

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<v Speaker 2>the United States Army. I did multiple deployments to Afghanistan,

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<v Speaker 2>and the man I'm going to tell you about, I'll

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<v Speaker 2>call him Joe, served with me on every single one

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<v Speaker 2>of those tours. Joe was the kind of guy you

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<v Speaker 2>wanted beside you when things went sideways. He was calm, methodical,

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<v Speaker 2>He didn't rattle. You could be taking contact from three directions,

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<v Speaker 2>round snapping over your head, dirt kicking up around your feet,

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<v Speaker 2>and Joe would be right there, steady as a rock,

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<v Speaker 2>calling out targets, returning fire with precision, moving like he'd

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<v Speaker 2>done it a thousand times, which by the time I

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<v Speaker 2>knew him, he pretty much had.

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<v Speaker 3>Joe was a few years older.

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<v Speaker 2>Than me, he'd been in longer, done more, seen more.

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<v Speaker 2>He didn't talk much about his early years in the service,

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<v Speaker 2>not the specifics anyway. He'd mentioned things here and there,

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<v Speaker 2>little fragments, but he never really sat down and laid

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<v Speaker 2>it all out. I got the sense that there were

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<v Speaker 2>things in his past that he'd been told not to

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<v Speaker 2>talk about. And Joe was the kind of man who

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<v Speaker 2>took orders seriously, even the ones that came with a

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<v Speaker 2>handshake and a look that said, you'd better keep your

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<v Speaker 2>mouth shut if you know what's good for you. But

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<v Speaker 2>one night that changed. We were stateside between deployment. We'd

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<v Speaker 2>been doing some training maneuvers, the kind of stuff that's

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<v Speaker 2>meant to keep you sharp between rotations, field exercises, land navigation,

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<v Speaker 2>small unit tactics, that sort of thing. It was late

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<v Speaker 2>fall and we were somewhere in the southeastern United States

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<v Speaker 2>at a military installation.

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<v Speaker 3>I'd rather not name.

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<v Speaker 2>The training had wrapped up for the day and a

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<v Speaker 2>few of us headed off posts to a little bar

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<v Speaker 2>that catered to the military crowd. Nothing fancy, neon signs

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<v Speaker 2>in the window, peanut shells on the floor, a jukebox

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<v Speaker 2>in the corner playing country music that nobody was listening to,

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<v Speaker 2>the kind of place where men who've seen too much

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<v Speaker 2>go to not think about it for a while. It

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<v Speaker 2>was me and Joe and two other guys from our unit.

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<v Speaker 2>We grabbed a booth in the back, ordered a round

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<v Speaker 2>of whiskey, and settled in. The place was maybe half full,

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<v Speaker 2>a mix of soldiers and locals, and a few women

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<v Speaker 2>sitting at the bar who'd probably heard that military.

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<v Speaker 3>Payday had just hit. There was a pool.

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<v Speaker 2>Table in the back corner, where a couple of guys

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<v Speaker 2>from another unit were running a game of the balls,

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<v Speaker 2>barely audible over the music. The lighting was dim, the

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<v Speaker 2>kind of intentional dimness that bars cultivate, so everybody looks

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<v Speaker 2>a little better and feels a little less accountable for

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<v Speaker 2>whatever they're about to do or say. The conversation started

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<v Speaker 2>the way it always did, talking trash, telling jokes, complaining

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<v Speaker 2>about the food in the chow hall, debating which deployment

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<v Speaker 2>had been the worst, normal stuff, soldier stuff, the kind

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<v Speaker 2>of meaningless back and forth that men engage in when

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<v Speaker 2>they're trying to decompress from something that can't really be

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<v Speaker 2>decompressed from. We argued about football for a while. Somebody

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<v Speaker 2>brought up a sergeant major we all hated, and told

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<v Speaker 2>a story about him that had us laughing so hard

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<v Speaker 2>the table shook. It was good, it was normal. It

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<v Speaker 2>felt almost like being a regular person in a regular bar,

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<v Speaker 2>having a regular night. But as the night wore on

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<v Speaker 2>and the whiskey kept flowing, the conversation got quieter, more serious.

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<v Speaker 2>The laughter came less frequently, pauses between words got longer.

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<v Speaker 2>That's how it always goes with soldiers who've been down

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<v Speaker 2>ranged together. You start with the jokes and then the

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<v Speaker 2>jokes run out, and then you're left with the silence

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<v Speaker 2>and whatever's living inside it. The other two guys eventually

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<v Speaker 2>drifted off to the bar to watch a football game

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<v Speaker 2>on the television, and it was just me and Joe

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<v Speaker 2>sitting across from each other in that booth with a

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<v Speaker 2>bottle of Jamison between us. That was a lot emptier

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<v Speaker 2>than it had been a couple hours earlier. The jukebox

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<v Speaker 2>had gone quiet. Somebody had apparently run out of quarters,

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<v Speaker 2>or maybe the thing just broke. Either way, the bar

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<v Speaker 2>had gotten noticeably quieter, and in that relative silence, something

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<v Speaker 2>shifted between me and Joe. I could feel it.

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<v Speaker 3>It was like a.

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<v Speaker 2>Change in barometric pressure, that sensation you get before a

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<v Speaker 2>storm rolls in, when the air gets heavy and electric,

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<v Speaker 2>and you know something's coming, even if you can't see

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<v Speaker 2>it yet. Joe got this look on his face. I'd

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<v Speaker 2>seen it before. It was the look he got when

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<v Speaker 2>something was working on him, when something was turning over

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<v Speaker 2>behind his eyes that he couldn't quite let go of.

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<v Speaker 2>He'd get that same look sometimes in the field, right

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<v Speaker 2>before he'd identify something. The rest of us had missed

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<v Speaker 2>a trip wire, a disturbed patch of earth that shouldn't

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<v Speaker 2>have been disturbed, some tiny detail that meant the difference

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<v Speaker 2>between walking home and getting carried home. It was the

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<v Speaker 2>look of a man wrestling with something internally. He stared

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<v Speaker 2>at his glass for a long time, swirling the whiskey around,

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<v Speaker 2>watching the amber liquid catch the light from the neon

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<v Speaker 2>sign in the window, and then he looked up at

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<v Speaker 2>me and said something I'll never forget. He said, Matt,

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<v Speaker 2>have you ever seen something that you know is real,

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<v Speaker 2>something you experienced with your own hands and your own eyes,

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<v Speaker 2>but you can't tell anybody about it, because they'd either

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<v Speaker 2>think you were crazy or you'd end up in a

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<v Speaker 2>cell somewhere. I told him I hadn't, not like that.

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<v Speaker 2>I mean, we'd all seen things in combat that we

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<v Speaker 2>couldn't talk about with civilians, things that would make normal

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<v Speaker 2>people lose their minds. But that wasn't what he was

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<v Speaker 2>talking about. This was something else entirely. He poured himself

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<v Speaker 2>another drink, knocked it back, and then he started talking.

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<v Speaker 2>Joe told me that back in the mid nineteen nineties,

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<v Speaker 2>years before September eleventh, years before any of us ever

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<v Speaker 2>heard of Tora Bora or Hellman Province or any of

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<v Speaker 2>the rest of it. He was part of a small

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<v Speaker 2>specialized team. He didn't call it special forces exactly, but

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<v Speaker 2>he made it clear these weren't regular infantry guys. These

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<v Speaker 2>were men who'd been selected for specific skills tracking, marksmanship,

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<v Speaker 2>field craft, the ability to operate in remote wilderness environments

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<v Speaker 2>for extended periods without support. He said the team was small,

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<v Speaker 2>maybe eight to ten men total, and they trained together

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<v Speaker 2>regularly for missions that were, as he put it, outside

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<v Speaker 2>the normal channels. He said most of what they did

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<v Speaker 2>was boring training exercises, readiness drills, sitting around waiting for

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<v Speaker 2>a call that might never come. But then one day

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<v Speaker 2>the call came.

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<v Speaker 3>Joe said.

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<v Speaker 2>They were assembled on short notice and briefed in a

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<v Speaker 2>room with no windows. The briefing was conducted by a

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<v Speaker 2>man in civilian clothes who never gave his name and

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<v Speaker 2>whom Joe had never seen before. There was also a

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<v Speaker 2>colonel present, but the colonel deferred to the civilian the

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<v Speaker 2>entire time, which Joe said was the first thing that

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<v Speaker 2>told him this wasn't a normal operation. In Joe's experience,

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<v Speaker 2>colonels didn't defer to anybody who wasn't wearing stars on

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<v Speaker 2>their shoulders, and they sure as hell didn't defer to civilians,

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<v Speaker 2>but this one did. The civilian told them that two

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<v Speaker 2>hikers had gone missing in a national park. He didn't

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<v Speaker 2>name the park, he didn't name the state. He simply

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<v Speaker 2>referred to it as the operational area.

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<v Speaker 3>Joe said.

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<v Speaker 2>The man spoke and clipped precise language, no wasted words,

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<v Speaker 2>no emotion. He put up photographs on a screen, aerial

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<v Speaker 2>shots of dense forest, a topographic map marked with grid coordinates,

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<v Speaker 2>and two photographs that Joe said he'll never get out

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<v Speaker 2>of his head as long as he lives. The first

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<v Speaker 2>photograph showed a man's body in a tree, not at

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<v Speaker 2>the base of a tree, not leaning against a tree,

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<v Speaker 2>in the tree, twenty five feet up, wedged into a

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<v Speaker 2>fork between two thick branches. His head canted at an

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<v Speaker 2>angle that no living person's head should ever be at.

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<v Speaker 2>His neck was broken, snapped. The body was still mostly intact,

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<v Speaker 2>but there was significant bruising visible on the torso and arms,

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<v Speaker 2>the kind of deep tissue damage you see from massive

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<v Speaker 2>blunt force trauma.

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<v Speaker 3>Joe said it.

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00:12:33.720 --> 00:12:36.159
<v Speaker 2>Looked like the man had been grabbed, crushed, and thrown

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<v Speaker 2>up into that tree like a rag doll, Like he

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<v Speaker 2>weighed nothing. The second photograph was worse in a way

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<v Speaker 2>because of what it didn't show. It was a photograph

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<v Speaker 2>of the area where the female hiker's belongings had been found,

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<v Speaker 2>her backpack, one of her hiking boots, shredded pieces of

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00:12:53.360 --> 00:12:56.519
<v Speaker 2>her jacket scattered across the forest floor. But there was

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<v Speaker 2>no body, no remains, nothing, She was simply gone, Joe said.

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<v Speaker 2>The civilian told them that extensive search and rescue efforts

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<v Speaker 2>had been conducted in the immediate aftermath of the hikers

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<v Speaker 2>being reported overdue, and that the male's body had been

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00:13:11.440 --> 00:13:14.440
<v Speaker 2>located by a search and rescue dog team, but that

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00:13:14.519 --> 00:13:18.519
<v Speaker 2>the female had never been found, not a trace. He

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<v Speaker 2>paused after saying that, and let it sink in, And

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<v Speaker 2>then he said something that changed the entire tone of

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<v Speaker 2>the room. He said, we believe we know what took them,

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<v Speaker 2>and we need you to go in and deal with it.

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<v Speaker 3>Joe said.

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<v Speaker 2>Nobody spoke for about ten seconds, which in a room

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<v Speaker 2>full of soldiers is an eternity. Then one of the

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<v Speaker 2>guys on the team, a staff sergeant who'd been around

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<v Speaker 2>even longer than Joe, asked the obvious question. He asked

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<v Speaker 2>what exactly it was they were being sent to deal with.

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<v Speaker 2>The civilian clicked to the next image on the screen.

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<v Speaker 2>It was a photograph of a footprint, not a bootprint,

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00:13:54.679 --> 00:13:58.279
<v Speaker 2>not a shoe print, a bare footprint pressed deep into

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00:13:58.360 --> 00:13:59.960
<v Speaker 2>soft earth along the bank of a creer.

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<v Speaker 3>And it was enormous, Joe said.

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<v Speaker 2>The photograph included a measuring tape laid alongside the print

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00:14:06.360 --> 00:14:09.840
<v Speaker 2>for scale, and the print measured over sixteen inches long

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00:14:09.960 --> 00:14:13.240
<v Speaker 2>and roughly seven inches wide. But that wasn't the one

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00:14:13.240 --> 00:14:17.159
<v Speaker 2>that got everybody's attention. The civilian clicked again, and the

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00:14:17.200 --> 00:14:20.440
<v Speaker 2>next photograph showed another print, this one found about a

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00:14:20.480 --> 00:14:23.759
<v Speaker 2>quarter mile from the first, and it was significantly larger,

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00:14:24.519 --> 00:14:28.759
<v Speaker 2>twenty three inches long nine inches wide. The depth of

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00:14:28.799 --> 00:14:32.559
<v Speaker 2>the impression in the soil suggested something of extraordinary mass,

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00:14:33.360 --> 00:14:35.399
<v Speaker 2>Joe said. The civilian told them that based on the

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00:14:35.440 --> 00:14:38.639
<v Speaker 2>stride length and the depth of the tracks, their analysts

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00:14:38.720 --> 00:14:41.639
<v Speaker 2>estimated the largest creature to be somewhere between seven and

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00:14:41.639 --> 00:14:43.919
<v Speaker 2>a half and eight and a half feet tall and

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00:14:44.000 --> 00:14:48.360
<v Speaker 2>weighing in excess of six hundred pounds. Creature, that was

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<v Speaker 2>the word he used, not suspect, not animal creature, Joe said.

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<v Speaker 2>The civilian never once used the word sasquatch. He never

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<v Speaker 2>said bigfoot, He never referenced anything that would connect what

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00:15:00.840 --> 00:15:04.279
<v Speaker 2>he was describing to folklore or legend or campfire stories.

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00:15:04.960 --> 00:15:08.039
<v Speaker 2>He spoke about it in purely clinical terms, as if

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00:15:08.039 --> 00:15:11.519
<v Speaker 2>he were describing a known species, something that had been

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00:15:11.559 --> 00:15:15.240
<v Speaker 2>studied and cataloged and understood at least to some degree.

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<v Speaker 2>And stay tuned for more sasquatch. Otta see, We'll be

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00:15:19.120 --> 00:15:26.399
<v Speaker 2>right back after these messages. And that, Joe said, was

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00:15:26.440 --> 00:15:30.039
<v Speaker 2>more unsettling than anything else about the briefing, because it

285
00:15:30.080 --> 00:15:34.159
<v Speaker 2>meant that whoever this man represented, whatever agency or organization,

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00:15:34.320 --> 00:15:37.919
<v Speaker 2>was pulling the strings, they already knew. They knew these

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00:15:37.960 --> 00:15:41.639
<v Speaker 2>things existed. This wasn't a discovery for them. This was

288
00:15:41.679 --> 00:15:43.440
<v Speaker 2>a problem that needed to be solved.

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00:15:44.000 --> 00:15:44.600
<v Speaker 3>The team was.

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00:15:44.559 --> 00:15:47.519
<v Speaker 2>Told that the operational area had been quietly closed to

291
00:15:47.559 --> 00:15:51.320
<v Speaker 2>the public under the guise of a wildfire hazard. Rangers

292
00:15:51.320 --> 00:15:54.519
<v Speaker 2>and Park Service personnel had been moved out. The area

293
00:15:54.600 --> 00:15:57.720
<v Speaker 2>was isolated, and it would remain isolated until the mission

294
00:15:57.759 --> 00:16:01.320
<v Speaker 2>was complete. They were given coords for an insertion point

295
00:16:01.320 --> 00:16:04.720
<v Speaker 2>and told they'd be helicoptered in at dawn. Their objective

296
00:16:04.799 --> 00:16:09.240
<v Speaker 2>was simple, locate the creatures, eliminate them, and then get out.

297
00:16:10.279 --> 00:16:13.320
<v Speaker 2>Joe said the rules of engagement were unlike anything he'd

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00:16:13.320 --> 00:16:16.320
<v Speaker 2>ever been given. They were told to treat the targets

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00:16:16.320 --> 00:16:21.279
<v Speaker 2>as hostile combatants with extreme physical capabilities. They were told

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00:16:21.279 --> 00:16:24.840
<v Speaker 2>that the creatures were believed to be highly intelligent, possibly

301
00:16:24.879 --> 00:16:28.399
<v Speaker 2>more intelligent than any known primate species, and that they

302
00:16:28.399 --> 00:16:32.919
<v Speaker 2>should not be underestimated under any circumstances. They were warned

303
00:16:32.919 --> 00:16:35.480
<v Speaker 2>that the creatures were believed to operate in a family

304
00:16:35.519 --> 00:16:39.039
<v Speaker 2>group a clan structure, and that where one was found,

305
00:16:39.200 --> 00:16:42.399
<v Speaker 2>others would likely be close by. They were told to

306
00:16:42.480 --> 00:16:46.080
<v Speaker 2>expect between three and five individuals based on the track analysis.

307
00:16:46.679 --> 00:16:49.320
<v Speaker 2>They were also told, and Joe said this part was

308
00:16:49.360 --> 00:16:51.919
<v Speaker 2>delivered with a coldness that made the hair on his

309
00:16:52.080 --> 00:16:55.519
<v Speaker 2>arms stand up, that upon completion of the mission, they

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00:16:55.559 --> 00:16:58.600
<v Speaker 2>would be met at a designated extraction point by a

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00:16:58.639 --> 00:17:02.279
<v Speaker 2>recovery team that would handle the remains. The recovery team

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00:17:02.320 --> 00:17:05.599
<v Speaker 2>was not military, Joe said, the civilian made that clear.

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00:17:06.160 --> 00:17:09.039
<v Speaker 2>The recovery team would arrive, they would take custody of

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00:17:09.039 --> 00:17:12.200
<v Speaker 2>whatever was left, and the soldier's involvement would end at

315
00:17:12.200 --> 00:17:16.319
<v Speaker 2>that point permanently. The civilian looked each man in the

316
00:17:16.359 --> 00:17:18.960
<v Speaker 2>eye and told them that this mission was classified above

317
00:17:19.000 --> 00:17:22.599
<v Speaker 2>top secret. He said that there was no official designation,

318
00:17:23.160 --> 00:17:26.920
<v Speaker 2>no operation name, no paper trail. As far as the

319
00:17:27.000 --> 00:17:30.319
<v Speaker 2>United States government was concerned, this mission did not exist,

320
00:17:30.720 --> 00:17:34.920
<v Speaker 2>had never existed, and would never exist. Anyone who spoke

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00:17:34.960 --> 00:17:38.559
<v Speaker 2>about it to anyone ever would face consequences that went

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00:17:38.640 --> 00:17:42.160
<v Speaker 2>far beyond a court martial. Joe said he believed him.

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00:17:42.400 --> 00:17:45.599
<v Speaker 2>They shipped out at four hundred the next morning. It

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00:17:45.680 --> 00:17:48.000
<v Speaker 2>was still dark when the helicopter lifted off from a

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00:17:48.039 --> 00:17:51.039
<v Speaker 2>small airfield that Joe said wasn't on any map he'd

326
00:17:51.079 --> 00:17:54.839
<v Speaker 2>ever seen. There was no tower, no ground crew in

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00:17:54.960 --> 00:17:58.720
<v Speaker 2>visible uniforms, just a flat strip of asphalt carved out

328
00:17:58.759 --> 00:18:01.000
<v Speaker 2>of the forest with a single hangar and a fuel

329
00:18:01.039 --> 00:18:05.359
<v Speaker 2>truck parked beside it. The pilots never introduced themselves. They

330
00:18:05.359 --> 00:18:08.799
<v Speaker 2>were already in the cockpit when the team arrived, visors down,

331
00:18:09.200 --> 00:18:10.880
<v Speaker 2>and they didn't say a word to any of the

332
00:18:10.920 --> 00:18:14.519
<v Speaker 2>operators during the entire flight. Joe said that told him

333
00:18:14.519 --> 00:18:17.359
<v Speaker 2>everything he needed to know about the level of compartmentalization

334
00:18:17.480 --> 00:18:20.359
<v Speaker 2>they were dealing with. The pilots knew where to go

335
00:18:20.599 --> 00:18:22.960
<v Speaker 2>and when to go, and that was all they knew,

336
00:18:23.440 --> 00:18:27.000
<v Speaker 2>or all they were willing to acknowledge. Knowing, they flew

337
00:18:27.039 --> 00:18:31.119
<v Speaker 2>for what Joe estimated was about two hours, heading generally northwest,

338
00:18:31.559 --> 00:18:34.559
<v Speaker 2>though he said the pilots took a circuitous route, making

339
00:18:34.599 --> 00:18:37.480
<v Speaker 2>several course changes and at one point flying for a

340
00:18:37.519 --> 00:18:40.519
<v Speaker 2>long stretch at very low altitude through a river canyon,

341
00:18:40.920 --> 00:18:43.960
<v Speaker 2>which made it difficult to determine exactly where they were going.

342
00:18:44.759 --> 00:18:46.559
<v Speaker 2>A couple of the guys on the team tried to

343
00:18:46.599 --> 00:18:50.160
<v Speaker 2>track their position using landmarks, but the combination of the

344
00:18:50.200 --> 00:18:54.079
<v Speaker 2>early morning darkness and the deliberate evasion made it nearly impossible.

345
00:18:54.839 --> 00:18:56.839
<v Speaker 2>Somebody asked Joe if he thought they were in the

346
00:18:56.839 --> 00:19:01.759
<v Speaker 2>Pacific northwest. Joe said maybe the terrain fit, but he

347
00:19:01.759 --> 00:19:04.799
<v Speaker 2>couldn't say for certain, and he got the distinct impression

348
00:19:04.839 --> 00:19:07.960
<v Speaker 2>that was exactly how it was supposed to be. When

349
00:19:07.960 --> 00:19:10.440
<v Speaker 2>they finally sat down, it was in a clearing on

350
00:19:10.480 --> 00:19:13.839
<v Speaker 2>the side of a mountain, surrounded by old growth forests

351
00:19:13.839 --> 00:19:16.240
<v Speaker 2>so thick and tall that the trees looked like the

352
00:19:16.279 --> 00:19:20.160
<v Speaker 2>columns of some ancient cathedral. The morning light was just

353
00:19:20.200 --> 00:19:24.039
<v Speaker 2>starting to filter through the canopy, thin and pale and golden,

354
00:19:24.480 --> 00:19:27.119
<v Speaker 2>and it caught the mist that hung between the trunks

355
00:19:27.119 --> 00:19:31.920
<v Speaker 2>in long, luminous sheets. Under other circumstances, Joe said it

356
00:19:31.920 --> 00:19:34.039
<v Speaker 2>would have been one of the most beautiful places he'd

357
00:19:34.039 --> 00:19:36.960
<v Speaker 2>ever seen, the kind of place that makes you feel

358
00:19:36.960 --> 00:19:40.039
<v Speaker 2>small in a way that isn't unpleasant, the kind that

359
00:19:40.119 --> 00:19:43.079
<v Speaker 2>reminds you how old and vast and indifferent the natural

360
00:19:43.119 --> 00:19:46.240
<v Speaker 2>world really is. But Joe didn't feel any of that

361
00:19:46.279 --> 00:19:50.440
<v Speaker 2>beauty that morning. What he felt was watched from the

362
00:19:50.480 --> 00:19:52.720
<v Speaker 2>moment his boots hit the ground. He felt like something

363
00:19:52.720 --> 00:19:56.079
<v Speaker 2>in those trees knew they were there. The air was

364
00:19:56.160 --> 00:19:58.799
<v Speaker 2>cold and wet and heavy with the smell of pine

365
00:19:58.839 --> 00:20:02.640
<v Speaker 2>and decaying leaves and something else, something Joe said he

366
00:20:02.640 --> 00:20:05.480
<v Speaker 2>couldn't identify at first, but that he'd later come to

367
00:20:05.519 --> 00:20:10.880
<v Speaker 2>associate with the creatures themselves, a musky, pungent, almost overpowering

368
00:20:10.920 --> 00:20:14.000
<v Speaker 2>odor that was unlike anything he'd encountered in nature before.

369
00:20:14.880 --> 00:20:17.559
<v Speaker 2>He said, he'd spent time in bear country. He'd been

370
00:20:17.599 --> 00:20:20.480
<v Speaker 2>around elk and moose and mountain lions and every other

371
00:20:20.599 --> 00:20:24.079
<v Speaker 2>large mammal the North American continent had to offer. He

372
00:20:24.160 --> 00:20:28.440
<v Speaker 2>knew what animals smelled like. This wasn't that it was organic,

373
00:20:28.799 --> 00:20:32.960
<v Speaker 2>clearly biological, but it had an almost chemical quality to it,

374
00:20:33.559 --> 00:20:36.039
<v Speaker 2>like the smell of a large predator's den mixed with

375
00:20:36.079 --> 00:20:40.640
<v Speaker 2>something sharper, something almost sulfuric. It burned the back of

376
00:20:40.680 --> 00:20:43.680
<v Speaker 2>your throat if you breathed too deeply, and it triggered

377
00:20:43.720 --> 00:20:47.279
<v Speaker 2>something primal, some deep seated alarm system in the body

378
00:20:47.319 --> 00:20:49.279
<v Speaker 2>that said you were not at the top of.

379
00:20:49.240 --> 00:20:49.880
<v Speaker 3>The food chain.

380
00:20:49.960 --> 00:20:53.000
<v Speaker 2>Here, the team assembled in the clearing and conducted a

381
00:20:53.039 --> 00:20:56.880
<v Speaker 2>final equipment check. Joe said they were armed with standard

382
00:20:56.880 --> 00:21:00.319
<v Speaker 2>issue rifles and side arms, but that each man also

383
00:21:00.400 --> 00:21:04.359
<v Speaker 2>carried a weapon that Joe described as significantly heavier caliber

384
00:21:04.559 --> 00:21:07.559
<v Speaker 2>than what they'd normally take into the field. He didn't

385
00:21:07.599 --> 00:21:10.880
<v Speaker 2>specify exactly what, but he implied they were carrying the

386
00:21:10.960 --> 00:21:14.759
<v Speaker 2>kind of firepower you'd bring to stop something large and dangerous,

387
00:21:15.279 --> 00:21:18.799
<v Speaker 2>something that might not go down easy. They also carried

388
00:21:18.839 --> 00:21:24.440
<v Speaker 2>standard field equipment radios, GPS units, first aid kits rations

389
00:21:24.480 --> 00:21:28.160
<v Speaker 2>for three days. The expectation, Joe said, was that the

390
00:21:28.200 --> 00:21:31.400
<v Speaker 2>mission would be completed within forty eight to seventy two hours.

391
00:21:32.079 --> 00:21:34.640
<v Speaker 2>They moved out at first light, heading along a ridge

392
00:21:34.640 --> 00:21:37.400
<v Speaker 2>line that the aerial photographs had shown leading toward the

393
00:21:37.400 --> 00:21:40.880
<v Speaker 2>creek where the largest tracks had been found. Joe was

394
00:21:40.920 --> 00:21:43.200
<v Speaker 2>on point for the first leg, and he said that

395
00:21:43.240 --> 00:21:45.519
<v Speaker 2>within the first hour he knew something was wrong with

396
00:21:45.559 --> 00:21:51.160
<v Speaker 2>the forest. Not wrong exactly, but different. Off The woods

397
00:21:51.160 --> 00:21:55.279
<v Speaker 2>were too quiet. There were no birds singing, no squirrels chattering,

398
00:21:55.759 --> 00:21:59.799
<v Speaker 2>no insects buzzing. The forest around them was utterly, completely,

399
00:22:00.000 --> 00:22:03.519
<v Speaker 2>depressively silent, as if every living thing within a mile

400
00:22:03.680 --> 00:22:07.079
<v Speaker 2>radius had packed up and left. Joe had spent years

401
00:22:07.119 --> 00:22:10.400
<v Speaker 2>training and operating in wilderness environments all over the country,

402
00:22:10.799 --> 00:22:14.200
<v Speaker 2>and he said he'd never experienced anything like it. They

403
00:22:14.240 --> 00:22:16.799
<v Speaker 2>reached the creek around mid morning and immediately found what

404
00:22:16.839 --> 00:22:21.279
<v Speaker 2>they were looking for, tracks, dozens of them. The creek

405
00:22:21.319 --> 00:22:25.000
<v Speaker 2>bank was soft, alluvial soil, the kind of dark, wet,

406
00:22:25.119 --> 00:22:27.720
<v Speaker 2>clay rich earth that holds an impression like a mold,

407
00:22:28.200 --> 00:22:33.240
<v Speaker 2>perfect for preserving detail, and the detail was extraordinary. Joe

408
00:22:33.319 --> 00:22:35.720
<v Speaker 2>said these weren't vague depressions in the dirt that could

409
00:22:35.720 --> 00:22:40.559
<v Speaker 2>be dismissed as natural features or misidentified animal prints. These

410
00:22:40.599 --> 00:22:46.480
<v Speaker 2>were clear, unmistakable, anatomically consistent footprints, showing individual toes, a

411
00:22:46.480 --> 00:22:50.279
<v Speaker 2>defined heel strike, a mid foot flection crease, and in

412
00:22:50.359 --> 00:22:54.440
<v Speaker 2>several of the deeper prints, visible dermal ridges. The equivalent

413
00:22:54.519 --> 00:22:55.519
<v Speaker 2>of fingerprints on.

414
00:22:55.480 --> 00:22:56.440
<v Speaker 3>The soles of the feet.

415
00:22:57.200 --> 00:23:00.119
<v Speaker 2>These were the footprints of a living bipedal prime I

416
00:23:00.119 --> 00:23:03.839
<v Speaker 2>mate like creature, and they were everywhere. The creek bank

417
00:23:03.960 --> 00:23:07.440
<v Speaker 2>was covered with footprints of various sizes layered over each

418
00:23:07.519 --> 00:23:11.200
<v Speaker 2>other in places, suggesting that this area was used repeatedly,

419
00:23:11.680 --> 00:23:14.880
<v Speaker 2>perhaps as a water source, perhaps as a crossing point,

420
00:23:15.359 --> 00:23:18.720
<v Speaker 2>perhaps as a fishing spot, Joe said. The tracker took

421
00:23:18.759 --> 00:23:21.599
<v Speaker 2>photographs of every print he could, and then spent about

422
00:23:21.599 --> 00:23:24.440
<v Speaker 2>twenty minutes cataloging what he found while the rest of

423
00:23:24.480 --> 00:23:27.799
<v Speaker 2>the team pulled security in a loose perimeter around the creek.

424
00:23:28.680 --> 00:23:32.000
<v Speaker 2>The tracker identified at least four distinct sets of prints.

425
00:23:32.759 --> 00:23:35.480
<v Speaker 2>The largest match the twenty three inch measurements from the

426
00:23:35.480 --> 00:23:39.559
<v Speaker 2>briefing photographs. These were the ones that commanded the most attention,

427
00:23:40.240 --> 00:23:43.039
<v Speaker 2>not just because of their size, but because of their depth.

428
00:23:43.960 --> 00:23:47.279
<v Speaker 2>The print was sunk nearly three inches into the soil, which,

429
00:23:47.319 --> 00:23:50.519
<v Speaker 2>given the consistency of the ground, suggested a creature of

430
00:23:50.599 --> 00:23:53.680
<v Speaker 2>extraordinary weight bearing down on a single foot during the

431
00:23:53.680 --> 00:23:58.079
<v Speaker 2>stride cycle. The second largest set was slightly smaller, around

432
00:23:58.119 --> 00:24:01.759
<v Speaker 2>eighteen inches, with a similar morphology but subtle differences in

433
00:24:01.799 --> 00:24:05.880
<v Speaker 2>the toe's play and arch shape that suggested a different individual.

434
00:24:06.720 --> 00:24:09.799
<v Speaker 2>The third set was narrower and showed a different gait pattern,

435
00:24:10.240 --> 00:24:13.319
<v Speaker 2>a shorter stride length with a slight inward rotation of

436
00:24:13.359 --> 00:24:17.319
<v Speaker 2>the foot, which the tracker believed indicated a female. And

437
00:24:17.400 --> 00:24:21.039
<v Speaker 2>the fourth set was significantly smaller than the others, maybe

438
00:24:21.079 --> 00:24:24.920
<v Speaker 2>sixteen inches, with a shallower depth of impression that suggested

439
00:24:24.960 --> 00:24:30.039
<v Speaker 2>something lighter, younger, a juvenile, Joe said. The tracker looked

440
00:24:30.079 --> 00:24:32.319
<v Speaker 2>up from the fourth set of prints with an expression

441
00:24:32.319 --> 00:24:33.519
<v Speaker 2>that Joe would remember for.

442
00:24:33.480 --> 00:24:35.160
<v Speaker 3>The rest of his life.

443
00:24:35.240 --> 00:24:39.079
<v Speaker 2>It wasn't fear, exactly, though there was certainly fear in it.

444
00:24:39.079 --> 00:24:41.519
<v Speaker 2>It was more like a kind of awe mixed with

445
00:24:41.640 --> 00:24:44.839
<v Speaker 2>something that might have been sadness. The tracker was a

446
00:24:44.839 --> 00:24:47.480
<v Speaker 2>man who had spent his entire adult life studying the

447
00:24:47.519 --> 00:24:50.640
<v Speaker 2>movement patterns of living things, and Joe could see in

448
00:24:50.640 --> 00:24:53.079
<v Speaker 2>his face the moment when everything the man thought he

449
00:24:53.160 --> 00:24:57.200
<v Speaker 2>knew about the natural world shifted on its axis. The

450
00:24:57.240 --> 00:25:00.599
<v Speaker 2>tracker looked at the team leader and said one word family,

451
00:25:01.079 --> 00:25:05.000
<v Speaker 2>four creatures, A family, Joe said. They followed the tracks

452
00:25:05.039 --> 00:25:08.160
<v Speaker 2>upstream for most of the day. The terrain was brutal,

453
00:25:08.680 --> 00:25:12.319
<v Speaker 2>steep ravines choked with dead fall boulder fields covered in

454
00:25:12.359 --> 00:25:15.799
<v Speaker 2>slick moss, creek crossings where the water ran fast and

455
00:25:15.880 --> 00:25:20.000
<v Speaker 2>cold over slippery rock. But the tracks were consistent and clear.

456
00:25:20.680 --> 00:25:23.920
<v Speaker 2>Whatever these things were, they weren't trying to hide their trail.

457
00:25:24.920 --> 00:25:28.000
<v Speaker 2>Joe said that bothered him in his experience, anything that

458
00:25:28.079 --> 00:25:30.880
<v Speaker 2>wasn't worried about being tracked either didn't know it was

459
00:25:30.920 --> 00:25:34.599
<v Speaker 2>being followed or it didn't care. And everything about the

460
00:25:34.599 --> 00:25:37.519
<v Speaker 2>briefing had told him these things were smart enough to know.

461
00:25:38.960 --> 00:25:41.480
<v Speaker 2>They made camp that first night on a small plateau

462
00:25:41.559 --> 00:25:46.119
<v Speaker 2>overlooking the creek drainage. The plateau was maybe thirty meters across,

463
00:25:46.640 --> 00:25:49.799
<v Speaker 2>ringed on three sides by dense timber, and dropping off

464
00:25:49.799 --> 00:25:52.319
<v Speaker 2>sharply on the fourth side into the ravine they'd been

465
00:25:52.319 --> 00:25:57.160
<v Speaker 2>following all day. It was a defensible position, decent sight lines,

466
00:25:57.680 --> 00:26:00.960
<v Speaker 2>natural obstacles to slow anything approaching from the tree line,

467
00:26:01.400 --> 00:26:04.079
<v Speaker 2>and the steep drop behind them meant they only had

468
00:26:04.079 --> 00:26:05.640
<v Speaker 2>to worry about three directions.

469
00:26:06.400 --> 00:26:06.839
<v Speaker 3>Joe said.

470
00:26:06.880 --> 00:26:09.559
<v Speaker 2>The team leader chose the position with the same tactical

471
00:26:09.599 --> 00:26:13.279
<v Speaker 2>instinct you'd use selecting a patrol base in hostile territory,

472
00:26:13.839 --> 00:26:16.200
<v Speaker 2>and that fact, the fact that they were treating this

473
00:26:16.319 --> 00:26:19.799
<v Speaker 2>wilderness as hostile territory wasn't lost on any of them.

474
00:26:20.240 --> 00:26:23.720
<v Speaker 2>They didn't build fires. They ate cold rations in silence,

475
00:26:24.160 --> 00:26:26.319
<v Speaker 2>each man sitting with his back to a tree or

476
00:26:26.359 --> 00:26:30.200
<v Speaker 2>a rock, weapons within arm's reach. Joe said the mood

477
00:26:30.240 --> 00:26:34.720
<v Speaker 2>was tense but professional. These were experienced operators. They knew

478
00:26:34.720 --> 00:26:38.440
<v Speaker 2>how to compartmentalize fear and focus on the task. But

479
00:26:38.519 --> 00:26:41.240
<v Speaker 2>there was an undercurrent of something Joe had never felt

480
00:26:41.240 --> 00:26:45.319
<v Speaker 2>before on any mission, a sense of being fundamentally out

481
00:26:45.359 --> 00:26:48.400
<v Speaker 2>of their depth of operating in a domain where their

482
00:26:48.440 --> 00:26:53.640
<v Speaker 2>training and technology and firepower might not be enough. In Afghanistan,

483
00:26:53.720 --> 00:26:57.640
<v Speaker 2>they'd faced enemies with rifles and mortars and improvised explosives.

484
00:26:58.480 --> 00:27:02.759
<v Speaker 2>Those threats were terrifying, but they were understood. They existed

485
00:27:02.799 --> 00:27:05.480
<v Speaker 2>within a framework of human conflict that soldiers had been

486
00:27:05.559 --> 00:27:09.640
<v Speaker 2>navigating for thousands of years. This was something else. Entirely,

487
00:27:10.319 --> 00:27:13.039
<v Speaker 2>this was a hunt, but Joe said he wasn't entirely

488
00:27:13.079 --> 00:27:16.319
<v Speaker 2>sure they were the hunters. They set up a watch rotation,

489
00:27:16.880 --> 00:27:20.079
<v Speaker 2>two men on at all times, equipped with night vision.

490
00:27:20.960 --> 00:27:23.920
<v Speaker 2>Joe pulled the first watch with another team member, a

491
00:27:23.920 --> 00:27:27.039
<v Speaker 2>man he called Ramirez, though Joe said that wasn't his

492
00:27:27.119 --> 00:27:31.200
<v Speaker 2>real name either. Ramirez was a quiet, intense guy from

493
00:27:31.279 --> 00:27:34.200
<v Speaker 2>somewhere in the Southwest. He'd grown up hunting in the

494
00:27:34.240 --> 00:27:37.799
<v Speaker 2>desert and could sit motionless for hours, watching and waiting

495
00:27:38.119 --> 00:27:41.079
<v Speaker 2>without losing focus. He was the kind of man you

496
00:27:41.119 --> 00:27:44.160
<v Speaker 2>wanted on watch when the stakes were high. The first

497
00:27:44.200 --> 00:27:47.599
<v Speaker 2>few hours were uneventful. The night settled over the mountain

498
00:27:47.720 --> 00:27:51.559
<v Speaker 2>like a heavy blanket, darkness so complete and absolute that

499
00:27:51.640 --> 00:27:54.160
<v Speaker 2>without night vision, you couldn't see your hand in front

500
00:27:54.160 --> 00:27:57.640
<v Speaker 2>of your face. The canopy above blocked out the stars

501
00:27:57.880 --> 00:28:01.319
<v Speaker 2>and whatever moonlight there might have been, creating a world

502
00:28:01.400 --> 00:28:04.759
<v Speaker 2>of impenetrable black that pressed against you from all sides.

503
00:28:05.680 --> 00:28:08.720
<v Speaker 2>Through the green phosphor glow of his night vision, Joe

504
00:28:08.720 --> 00:28:11.799
<v Speaker 2>could see the tree line around their perimeter, the ghostly

505
00:28:11.839 --> 00:28:15.759
<v Speaker 2>shapes of the trunk standing like silent sentinels, the occasional

506
00:28:15.799 --> 00:28:18.079
<v Speaker 2>movement of a branch, and a breeze. He couldn't feel.

507
00:28:18.960 --> 00:28:24.480
<v Speaker 2>Everything was still. Everything was quiet, too quiet. Joe said,

508
00:28:24.480 --> 00:28:26.960
<v Speaker 2>that was the thing that kept gnawing at him. At

509
00:28:27.000 --> 00:28:30.279
<v Speaker 2>any campsite he'd ever occupied, in any forest he'd ever

510
00:28:30.359 --> 00:28:34.880
<v Speaker 2>operated in, the night was alive with sound, owl's calling,

511
00:28:35.559 --> 00:28:39.200
<v Speaker 2>mice rustling through leaf litter, the distant yip of coyotes,

512
00:28:39.799 --> 00:28:42.359
<v Speaker 2>the hum and chirp of a thousand insects, creating a

513
00:28:42.400 --> 00:28:46.000
<v Speaker 2>constant sonic backdrop that you stopped noticing after a while

514
00:28:46.480 --> 00:28:50.079
<v Speaker 2>because it was just always there. But here on this

515
00:28:50.200 --> 00:28:54.519
<v Speaker 2>mountain there was nothing. The silence was total and oppressive,

516
00:28:55.039 --> 00:28:57.319
<v Speaker 2>so complete that Joe said he could hear the blood

517
00:28:57.400 --> 00:29:00.240
<v Speaker 2>moving through his own ears, could hear each eat of

518
00:29:00.279 --> 00:29:03.799
<v Speaker 2>his heart, could hear Ramirez breathing twelve feet to his left.

519
00:29:04.680 --> 00:29:06.799
<v Speaker 2>It was the kind of silence that made you realize

520
00:29:06.839 --> 00:29:10.000
<v Speaker 2>how much background noise you normally take for granted, and

521
00:29:10.079 --> 00:29:14.720
<v Speaker 2>its absence was profoundly viscerally wrong. It was during that

522
00:29:14.799 --> 00:29:17.839
<v Speaker 2>first watch that they heard them. Joe said, it started

523
00:29:17.920 --> 00:29:21.839
<v Speaker 2>around two hundred two o'clock in the morning. The silence

524
00:29:21.839 --> 00:29:25.480
<v Speaker 2>had been unbroken for hours, so total and so sustained

525
00:29:25.759 --> 00:29:28.200
<v Speaker 2>that Joe had almost begun to accept it as normal,

526
00:29:28.680 --> 00:29:32.079
<v Speaker 2>to adjust to this soundless world as the new baseline.

527
00:29:32.960 --> 00:29:36.279
<v Speaker 2>And then, from somewhere up the drainage, maybe half a

528
00:29:36.319 --> 00:29:40.240
<v Speaker 2>mile away, maybe less, a sound rose out of the

529
00:29:40.319 --> 00:29:43.519
<v Speaker 2>darkness that Joe said turned his blood to ice water

530
00:29:43.640 --> 00:29:47.359
<v Speaker 2>in his veins. It was a vocalization, that was the

531
00:29:47.400 --> 00:29:50.680
<v Speaker 2>clinical term for it, but calling what Joe described, a

532
00:29:50.759 --> 00:29:54.400
<v Speaker 2>vocalization is like calling a hurricane a breeze.

533
00:29:54.440 --> 00:29:54.799
<v Speaker 3>He said.

534
00:29:54.799 --> 00:29:59.039
<v Speaker 2>It started low, a deep, rumbling chest vibrating bass note

535
00:29:59.039 --> 00:30:00.920
<v Speaker 2>that he felt in his stern before he heard it

536
00:30:01.000 --> 00:30:05.079
<v Speaker 2>with his ears, and stay tuned for more sasquatch ott

537
00:30:05.079 --> 00:30:11.519
<v Speaker 2>to see. We'll be right back after these messages. It

538
00:30:11.559 --> 00:30:15.039
<v Speaker 2>was like the growl of something impossibly large, something with

539
00:30:15.119 --> 00:30:17.680
<v Speaker 2>a chest cavity the size of a fifty gallon drum,

540
00:30:18.319 --> 00:30:21.359
<v Speaker 2>resonating at a frequency that seemed to bypass his ears

541
00:30:21.519 --> 00:30:24.799
<v Speaker 2>entirely and go straight to some primal, ancient part of

542
00:30:24.799 --> 00:30:27.960
<v Speaker 2>his brain that knew exactly what it was hearing, even

543
00:30:27.960 --> 00:30:30.119
<v Speaker 2>if his conscious mind couldn't process it.

544
00:30:30.839 --> 00:30:31.640
<v Speaker 3>And then it rose.

545
00:30:32.519 --> 00:30:35.039
<v Speaker 2>The sound climbed in pitch and volume until it became

546
00:30:35.079 --> 00:30:39.559
<v Speaker 2>a howl, a scream, a roar, something that combined all

547
00:30:39.640 --> 00:30:42.519
<v Speaker 2>three and was somehow worse than any of them individually.

548
00:30:43.400 --> 00:30:45.720
<v Speaker 2>It echoed off the mountain sides and rolled through the

549
00:30:45.839 --> 00:30:48.759
<v Speaker 2>valley like thunder, and Joe said it went on and

550
00:30:48.799 --> 00:30:52.160
<v Speaker 2>on and on, far longer than any human could sustain

551
00:30:52.200 --> 00:30:56.079
<v Speaker 2>a vocalization, far longer than any animal he'd ever heard.

552
00:30:57.039 --> 00:31:00.000
<v Speaker 2>He estimated the call lasted between fifteen and twenty seven

553
00:31:00.000 --> 00:31:03.640
<v Speaker 2>seconds before it finally tapered off and faded into the darkness.

554
00:31:04.480 --> 00:31:06.160
<v Speaker 2>The silence that followed was worse.

555
00:31:06.920 --> 00:31:07.359
<v Speaker 3>Joe said.

556
00:31:07.359 --> 00:31:09.440
<v Speaker 2>He looked over at Ramirez and saw that the man's

557
00:31:09.440 --> 00:31:12.440
<v Speaker 2>face had gone completely white in the green glow of

558
00:31:12.480 --> 00:31:16.559
<v Speaker 2>the night vision. Ramirez was a combat veteran. He'd been

559
00:31:16.599 --> 00:31:19.279
<v Speaker 2>in firefights in places that would make your skin crawl,

560
00:31:20.000 --> 00:31:23.200
<v Speaker 2>But in that moment, on that dark mountain side, listening

561
00:31:23.279 --> 00:31:26.279
<v Speaker 2>to the echo of something that shouldn't exist rolling through

562
00:31:26.319 --> 00:31:29.559
<v Speaker 2>the timber, Ramirez looked like a man who was seriously

563
00:31:29.640 --> 00:31:33.559
<v Speaker 2>reconsidering every decision that had led him to this particular moment.

564
00:31:34.400 --> 00:31:38.599
<v Speaker 2>And then the call was answered from behind them, from uphill,

565
00:31:38.839 --> 00:31:41.880
<v Speaker 2>deeper in the forest, maybe a quarter mile away. A

566
00:31:41.920 --> 00:31:45.440
<v Speaker 2>second voice rose in response. This one was higher in

567
00:31:45.480 --> 00:31:48.440
<v Speaker 2>pitch but no less powerful, and it was joined almost

568
00:31:48.519 --> 00:31:52.319
<v Speaker 2>immediately by a third, this one more of a rapid, staccato,

569
00:31:52.400 --> 00:31:56.799
<v Speaker 2>barking sound, percussive and aggressive, like something hitting a hollow

570
00:31:56.880 --> 00:32:01.279
<v Speaker 2>log with a baseball bat while simultaneously screaming. The three

571
00:32:01.359 --> 00:32:04.480
<v Speaker 2>voices overlapped and intertwined for what Joe said felt like

572
00:32:04.519 --> 00:32:07.640
<v Speaker 2>an hour but was probably less than a minute, and

573
00:32:07.680 --> 00:32:11.440
<v Speaker 2>then they stopped all at once, as if someone had

574
00:32:11.440 --> 00:32:15.720
<v Speaker 2>thrown a switch, and the silence returned. Joe said. Nobody

575
00:32:15.799 --> 00:32:18.279
<v Speaker 2>slept for the rest of that night. Every man on

576
00:32:18.359 --> 00:32:21.359
<v Speaker 2>the team sat with his weapon across his knees, staring

577
00:32:21.400 --> 00:32:25.160
<v Speaker 2>into the darkness, listening, but there was nothing more to hear.

578
00:32:25.799 --> 00:32:29.079
<v Speaker 2>The forest was silent, and somehow that was the most

579
00:32:29.079 --> 00:32:32.400
<v Speaker 2>frightening thing of all. They broke camp at first light

580
00:32:32.480 --> 00:32:35.839
<v Speaker 2>and resumed tracking. Joe said nobody needed to be told

581
00:32:35.839 --> 00:32:39.519
<v Speaker 2>to move. They'd been awake for hours, every man sitting

582
00:32:39.640 --> 00:32:42.160
<v Speaker 2>rigid in the darkness with his weapon across his knees,

583
00:32:42.519 --> 00:32:46.480
<v Speaker 2>replaying those vocalizations in his mind, trying to reconcile what

584
00:32:46.519 --> 00:32:49.240
<v Speaker 2>his ears had heard with what his training and education

585
00:32:49.400 --> 00:32:53.279
<v Speaker 2>told him should exist in a North American forest. Nobody

586
00:32:53.359 --> 00:32:57.519
<v Speaker 2>had an explanation. Nobody offered one. They just packed their

587
00:32:57.519 --> 00:33:01.119
<v Speaker 2>gear in silence and moved out. Trail led them higher

588
00:33:01.119 --> 00:33:03.720
<v Speaker 2>into the mountains, along the spine of a ridge that

589
00:33:03.880 --> 00:33:07.480
<v Speaker 2>rose steeply through stands of enormous Douglas fir and western

590
00:33:07.519 --> 00:33:11.400
<v Speaker 2>red cedar. Joe said, the trees up there were ancient, massive,

591
00:33:11.519 --> 00:33:14.240
<v Speaker 2>some of them six or seven feet in diameter, their

592
00:33:14.319 --> 00:33:17.559
<v Speaker 2>trunks rising straight and branchless for forty or fifty feet

593
00:33:17.599 --> 00:33:20.519
<v Speaker 2>before the canopy started. Many of them had to be

594
00:33:20.599 --> 00:33:22.960
<v Speaker 2>five hundred maybe eight hundred years old.

595
00:33:23.720 --> 00:33:24.640
<v Speaker 3>These were trees that.

596
00:33:24.599 --> 00:33:27.960
<v Speaker 2>Had been standing when Columbus set sail, trees that had

597
00:33:28.000 --> 00:33:31.440
<v Speaker 2>witnessed the entirety of European presents on this continent and

598
00:33:31.480 --> 00:33:35.480
<v Speaker 2>hadn't moved an inch. Their bark was thick and deeply furrowed,

599
00:33:35.839 --> 00:33:39.160
<v Speaker 2>and in places it was scarred with long, vertical gouges

600
00:33:39.160 --> 00:33:41.799
<v Speaker 2>that the tracker pointed out and said were not natural.

601
00:33:42.599 --> 00:33:46.200
<v Speaker 2>Something with claws or fingers had scraped those marks into

602
00:33:46.240 --> 00:33:49.200
<v Speaker 2>the wood at heights ranging from five to nearly nine

603
00:33:49.240 --> 00:33:54.000
<v Speaker 2>feet off the ground, territorial markers, maybe signposts. In the

604
00:33:54.119 --> 00:33:57.680
<v Speaker 2>language the team couldn't read. The understory was a tangle

605
00:33:57.720 --> 00:34:00.960
<v Speaker 2>of ferns and fallen logs and devil's club, the kind

606
00:34:00.960 --> 00:34:03.400
<v Speaker 2>of vegetation that grabs at your legs and tears at

607
00:34:03.440 --> 00:34:07.000
<v Speaker 2>your clothing and slows you to a crawl. Every step

608
00:34:07.039 --> 00:34:10.639
<v Speaker 2>required effort and attention, and the physical demands of the terrain,

609
00:34:11.199 --> 00:34:14.599
<v Speaker 2>combined with the sleep deprivation and the constant low grade

610
00:34:14.639 --> 00:34:17.400
<v Speaker 2>adrenaline that had been coursing through every man since those

611
00:34:17.480 --> 00:34:22.039
<v Speaker 2>vocalizations the night before was taking a toll. Joe said

612
00:34:22.039 --> 00:34:24.039
<v Speaker 2>he could see it in the faces of his teammates,

613
00:34:24.559 --> 00:34:28.480
<v Speaker 2>the tight jaws, the darting eyes, the way everybody's head

614
00:34:28.519 --> 00:34:32.440
<v Speaker 2>was on a swivel, scanning the tree line, constantly flinching

615
00:34:32.480 --> 00:34:35.320
<v Speaker 2>at every snap twig and every rustle of wind through

616
00:34:35.360 --> 00:34:38.599
<v Speaker 2>the canopy. These were men who'd kept their composure under

617
00:34:38.679 --> 00:34:42.840
<v Speaker 2>mortar fire, and they were spooked. That fact alone, more

618
00:34:42.880 --> 00:34:46.280
<v Speaker 2>than anything else, told Joe how far outside the boundaries

619
00:34:46.280 --> 00:34:50.159
<v Speaker 2>of normal experience they traveled. The light that filtered down

620
00:34:50.199 --> 00:34:52.760
<v Speaker 2>through the canopy was dim and green and had a

621
00:34:52.840 --> 00:34:56.840
<v Speaker 2>quality to it that Joe described as almost submarine, like

622
00:34:56.920 --> 00:35:01.599
<v Speaker 2>being underwater in a murky lakesi Ability was limited, maybe

623
00:35:01.639 --> 00:35:04.440
<v Speaker 2>forty or fifty meters in any direction before the trunks

624
00:35:04.440 --> 00:35:08.480
<v Speaker 2>and the undergrowth swallowed everything in shadow. It was perfect

625
00:35:08.480 --> 00:35:11.440
<v Speaker 2>ambush terrain, and every man on the team knew it.

626
00:35:12.400 --> 00:35:15.960
<v Speaker 2>Around midday, the tracker signaled a halt he'd found something.

627
00:35:16.679 --> 00:35:18.760
<v Speaker 2>The team moved up to his position and found what

628
00:35:18.880 --> 00:35:22.920
<v Speaker 2>Joe described as a structure, not a nest, not a den,

629
00:35:23.599 --> 00:35:26.679
<v Speaker 2>a structure. It was built against the base of an

630
00:35:26.840 --> 00:35:30.719
<v Speaker 2>enormous fallen tree using branches and smaller logs that had

631
00:35:30.719 --> 00:35:34.719
<v Speaker 2>been deliberately placed, interlocked and woven together to form a

632
00:35:34.800 --> 00:35:38.400
<v Speaker 2>rough shelter about eight feet tall and maybe ten feet across.

633
00:35:39.320 --> 00:35:43.480
<v Speaker 2>The opening faced downhill away from the prevailing wind, and

634
00:35:43.559 --> 00:35:46.079
<v Speaker 2>the ground inside was covered with a thick layer of

635
00:35:46.199 --> 00:35:49.360
<v Speaker 2>dried ferns and grass and strips of bark that had

636
00:35:49.360 --> 00:35:53.280
<v Speaker 2>been shredded and laid down like bedding. The smell was staggering,

637
00:35:54.000 --> 00:35:56.639
<v Speaker 2>Joe said. The musky odor they detected at the insertion

638
00:35:56.760 --> 00:35:59.800
<v Speaker 2>point was nothing compared to what hit them at that structure.

639
00:36:00.480 --> 00:36:04.239
<v Speaker 2>It was concentrated, overwhelming, so thick in the air that

640
00:36:04.320 --> 00:36:07.239
<v Speaker 2>several of the men gagged. Joe said, it was the

641
00:36:07.280 --> 00:36:12.360
<v Speaker 2>smell of something alive, something huge and wild and absolutely real.

642
00:36:12.920 --> 00:36:15.360
<v Speaker 2>And standing in front of that shelter, looking at the

643
00:36:15.400 --> 00:36:19.320
<v Speaker 2>clear evidence of intelligence and deliberate construction, he said, the

644
00:36:19.400 --> 00:36:23.239
<v Speaker 2>last trace of doubt left his mind. Whatever they were tracking,

645
00:36:23.599 --> 00:36:26.480
<v Speaker 2>it wasn't an animal, not in the way he understood

646
00:36:26.480 --> 00:36:30.000
<v Speaker 2>the word. It was something else, something that fell into

647
00:36:30.079 --> 00:36:32.760
<v Speaker 2>a category that didn't have a name in any field

648
00:36:32.800 --> 00:36:36.559
<v Speaker 2>manual he'd ever read. The tracker determined that the structure

649
00:36:36.559 --> 00:36:40.039
<v Speaker 2>had been recently occupied within the last twenty four hours.

650
00:36:40.079 --> 00:36:42.679
<v Speaker 2>Based on the freshness of the bedding material and the

651
00:36:42.719 --> 00:36:46.079
<v Speaker 2>intensity of the odor. The tracks leading away from it

652
00:36:46.159 --> 00:36:49.320
<v Speaker 2>headed further up the ridge, and they were deep and fresh.

653
00:36:50.119 --> 00:36:53.159
<v Speaker 2>The team was close. They moved out in a staggered

654
00:36:53.159 --> 00:36:59.199
<v Speaker 2>tactical formation, maintaining noise discipline, communicating with hand signals. Joe

655
00:36:59.199 --> 00:37:02.559
<v Speaker 2>said the tension was suffocating. Every man on that team

656
00:37:02.599 --> 00:37:05.519
<v Speaker 2>had operated in combat environments where the thread of death

657
00:37:05.599 --> 00:37:09.880
<v Speaker 2>was constant and real, but this was different. In combat,

658
00:37:10.159 --> 00:37:13.320
<v Speaker 2>you knew what you were up against. You understood your enemy,

659
00:37:13.840 --> 00:37:17.880
<v Speaker 2>You'd studied his tactics, his weapons, his patterns of behavior.

660
00:37:18.599 --> 00:37:22.159
<v Speaker 2>But out here in this ancient forest, tracking something that

661
00:37:22.199 --> 00:37:26.239
<v Speaker 2>the United States government apparently knew about but refused to acknowledge,

662
00:37:26.719 --> 00:37:29.400
<v Speaker 2>something that could rip a grown man apart and throw

663
00:37:29.440 --> 00:37:32.519
<v Speaker 2>his body twenty five feet into a tree. They were

664
00:37:32.559 --> 00:37:36.480
<v Speaker 2>in completely unknown territory, and every one of them knew it.

665
00:37:37.280 --> 00:37:41.719
<v Speaker 2>The encounter happened around fourteen hundred hours that afternoon, two o'clock.

666
00:37:42.440 --> 00:37:44.679
<v Speaker 2>They'd been moving along the ridge for about two hours

667
00:37:44.719 --> 00:37:47.079
<v Speaker 2>when the point man, who had taken over from Joe

668
00:37:47.119 --> 00:37:52.039
<v Speaker 2>after the midday halt, raised his fist. Everybody froze. Joe

669
00:37:52.039 --> 00:37:54.840
<v Speaker 2>was about fifteen meters back in the formation, and from

670
00:37:54.840 --> 00:37:58.039
<v Speaker 2>his position he could see the point man slowly lower

671
00:37:58.119 --> 00:38:01.880
<v Speaker 2>himself to one knee and raise his rifle. Joe followed

672
00:38:01.880 --> 00:38:04.400
<v Speaker 2>his line of sight and saw movement in the trees ahead,

673
00:38:05.079 --> 00:38:09.400
<v Speaker 2>something large, something dark, moving between the trunks with the

674
00:38:09.400 --> 00:38:12.960
<v Speaker 2>fluidity that Joe said was deeply disturbing, because nothing that

675
00:38:13.079 --> 00:38:16.599
<v Speaker 2>big should be able to move that quietly. Joe raised

676
00:38:16.599 --> 00:38:18.719
<v Speaker 2>his optic and got his first clear look at one

677
00:38:18.760 --> 00:38:19.400
<v Speaker 2>of them through.

678
00:38:19.199 --> 00:38:20.760
<v Speaker 3>His rifle scope.

679
00:38:20.800 --> 00:38:22.920
<v Speaker 2>He said his first thought was that it was a man.

680
00:38:23.800 --> 00:38:27.400
<v Speaker 2>His brain defaulted to the most logical explanation that what

681
00:38:27.480 --> 00:38:30.119
<v Speaker 2>he was seeing was a very large human being moving

682
00:38:30.159 --> 00:38:34.079
<v Speaker 2>through the forest, but that interpretation lasted about two seconds

683
00:38:34.159 --> 00:38:36.400
<v Speaker 2>before it collapsed under the weight of what his eyes

684
00:38:36.440 --> 00:38:41.960
<v Speaker 2>were actually telling him. It was humanoid bipedal upright, but

685
00:38:42.000 --> 00:38:45.440
<v Speaker 2>it was not human. Joe estimated it stood between six

686
00:38:45.440 --> 00:38:48.320
<v Speaker 2>and a half and seven feet tall. Its body was

687
00:38:48.360 --> 00:38:51.239
<v Speaker 2>covered in dark brown hair, not fur in the way

688
00:38:51.280 --> 00:38:54.880
<v Speaker 2>a bear's coat is fur, but hair coarse and matted

689
00:38:54.920 --> 00:38:58.639
<v Speaker 2>and hanging in places, thinner in others. It was broad

690
00:38:58.639 --> 00:39:03.119
<v Speaker 2>across the shoulders, enormously broad, whiter than any human Joe

691
00:39:03.159 --> 00:39:06.320
<v Speaker 2>had ever seen, and its arms were long relative to

692
00:39:06.400 --> 00:39:09.360
<v Speaker 2>its body, hanging past what would have been the knee

693
00:39:09.400 --> 00:39:12.880
<v Speaker 2>on a human frame. Its hands were visible, and Joe

694
00:39:12.880 --> 00:39:15.960
<v Speaker 2>said they were massive, easily twice the size of a

695
00:39:16.039 --> 00:39:19.599
<v Speaker 2>large man's hands, with thick fingers that curled slightly as

696
00:39:19.599 --> 00:39:22.800
<v Speaker 2>it walked. The head sat on a short, thick neck,

697
00:39:23.199 --> 00:39:25.559
<v Speaker 2>and Joe said the most striking feature of the head

698
00:39:25.639 --> 00:39:29.440
<v Speaker 2>was the brow, a heavy, pronounced, bony ridge that jutted

699
00:39:29.480 --> 00:39:31.480
<v Speaker 2>out over the eyes and gave the face a look

700
00:39:31.679 --> 00:39:36.559
<v Speaker 2>that he described as simultaneously primitive and frighteningly aware. The

701
00:39:36.599 --> 00:39:39.559
<v Speaker 2>thing was looking around as it moved. It was scanning,

702
00:39:40.079 --> 00:39:43.079
<v Speaker 2>It was alert. It was not simply ambling through the

703
00:39:43.119 --> 00:39:45.320
<v Speaker 2>forest the way a bear or a deer mite.

704
00:39:45.760 --> 00:39:47.719
<v Speaker 3>It was watching. Joe said.

705
00:39:47.760 --> 00:39:50.159
<v Speaker 2>There was a moment, a fraction of a second, where

706
00:39:50.199 --> 00:39:52.440
<v Speaker 2>the creature turned its head and seemed to look directly

707
00:39:52.480 --> 00:39:55.280
<v Speaker 2>in his direction, and even though he was well concealed

708
00:39:55.320 --> 00:39:59.079
<v Speaker 2>and making no sound, he felt with absolute certainty.

709
00:39:58.599 --> 00:40:00.760
<v Speaker 3>That it knew he was there. He said.

710
00:40:00.800 --> 00:40:03.800
<v Speaker 2>The eyes were dark, deeply set under that heavy brow,

711
00:40:04.360 --> 00:40:07.159
<v Speaker 2>and there was an intelligence behind them that was unmistakable

712
00:40:07.400 --> 00:40:11.320
<v Speaker 2>and profoundly disturbing. The team leader, who was positioned about

713
00:40:11.360 --> 00:40:14.719
<v Speaker 2>ten meters to Joe's left, made the call. He gave

714
00:40:14.760 --> 00:40:19.400
<v Speaker 2>the signal to engage, Joe said, three rifles fired almost simultaneously.

715
00:40:20.039 --> 00:40:22.320
<v Speaker 2>The creature in the open took multiple hits in the

716
00:40:22.320 --> 00:40:25.599
<v Speaker 2>center of mass and went down hard, crashing forward into

717
00:40:25.599 --> 00:40:28.760
<v Speaker 2>the underbrush with a sound like a falling tree. But

718
00:40:28.880 --> 00:40:31.440
<v Speaker 2>before the echo of those first shots had faded, the

719
00:40:31.480 --> 00:40:35.039
<v Speaker 2>forest erupted from the right from a thicket of devil's

720
00:40:35.079 --> 00:40:38.000
<v Speaker 2>club and vine maple that was so dense Joe hadn't

721
00:40:38.000 --> 00:40:41.159
<v Speaker 2>thought anything could possibly be hiding in it. A second

722
00:40:41.159 --> 00:40:44.800
<v Speaker 2>creature burst into the open. This one was slightly smaller

723
00:40:44.800 --> 00:40:47.719
<v Speaker 2>than the first, with lighter colored hair and a narrower

724
00:40:47.760 --> 00:40:50.639
<v Speaker 2>build that Joe would later associate with the female tracks

725
00:40:50.800 --> 00:40:54.159
<v Speaker 2>they'd cataloged at the creek. It moved with a speed

726
00:40:54.199 --> 00:40:58.119
<v Speaker 2>that Joe said defied everything he understood about biomechanics and

727
00:40:58.239 --> 00:41:04.000
<v Speaker 2>large body mass. It covered ground like a sprinter, arms pumping, legs, churning,

728
00:41:04.280 --> 00:41:07.079
<v Speaker 2>crashing through vegetation that would have stopped a man cold.

729
00:41:07.960 --> 00:41:11.159
<v Speaker 2>It was screaming as it ran, producing a vocalization that

730
00:41:11.280 --> 00:41:14.119
<v Speaker 2>Joe described as the most horrifying sound he'd ever heard

731
00:41:14.119 --> 00:41:18.280
<v Speaker 2>in his life. A piercing, wailing shriek that oscillated between

732
00:41:18.320 --> 00:41:23.000
<v Speaker 2>frequencies so rapidly it sounded almost electronic, like a siren

733
00:41:23.079 --> 00:41:26.599
<v Speaker 2>being fed through a distortion pedal. Two men engaged the

734
00:41:26.599 --> 00:41:30.440
<v Speaker 2>creature as it charged. Joe said the rounds impacted visibly.

735
00:41:31.000 --> 00:41:32.400
<v Speaker 2>He could see the hair puff.

736
00:41:32.199 --> 00:41:32.719
<v Speaker 3>With each hit.

737
00:41:33.280 --> 00:41:35.599
<v Speaker 2>But the creature kept coming for another three or four

738
00:41:35.639 --> 00:41:38.559
<v Speaker 2>strides before its legs seemed to give out and it

739
00:41:38.599 --> 00:41:42.079
<v Speaker 2>collapsed forward, sliding through the ferns and dead leaves and

740
00:41:42.119 --> 00:41:45.119
<v Speaker 2>coming to rest against the base of a cedar tree.

741
00:41:45.159 --> 00:41:48.079
<v Speaker 2>And then the juvenile appeared. It came out of the

742
00:41:48.119 --> 00:41:51.719
<v Speaker 2>same thicket as the female, slightly behind and to the left.

743
00:41:52.599 --> 00:41:53.000
<v Speaker 3>Joe said.

744
00:41:53.039 --> 00:41:55.960
<v Speaker 2>It was about five feet tall, covered in lighter hair

745
00:41:56.000 --> 00:41:59.440
<v Speaker 2>than the adults, almost auburn in color, and it was

746
00:41:59.480 --> 00:42:02.840
<v Speaker 2>making a that, Joe said, almost broke him. It wasn't

747
00:42:02.880 --> 00:42:06.199
<v Speaker 2>a roar, it wasn't a scream. It was a cry,

748
00:42:07.039 --> 00:42:10.280
<v Speaker 2>a keening, wavering, high pitched cry that sounded so much

749
00:42:10.320 --> 00:42:13.480
<v Speaker 2>like a human child in distress that Joe's finger hesitated

750
00:42:13.519 --> 00:42:16.559
<v Speaker 2>on the trigger for a fraction of a second, for

751
00:42:16.679 --> 00:42:21.000
<v Speaker 2>the smallest sliver of time, Something in him resisted, something

752
00:42:21.039 --> 00:42:24.000
<v Speaker 2>in his gut in his chest in whatever part of

753
00:42:24.000 --> 00:42:27.320
<v Speaker 2>a man houses. His conscience rebelled against what he was

754
00:42:27.360 --> 00:42:31.320
<v Speaker 2>about to do, but training took over. Orders took over,

755
00:42:31.800 --> 00:42:35.199
<v Speaker 2>the mission took over. Two rounds from different shooters hit

756
00:42:35.199 --> 00:42:38.360
<v Speaker 2>the juvenile almost simultaneously, and it went down.

757
00:42:39.159 --> 00:42:39.599
<v Speaker 3>Joe said.

758
00:42:39.599 --> 00:42:42.199
<v Speaker 2>It fell forward and didn't move, and the sound it

759
00:42:42.280 --> 00:42:45.800
<v Speaker 2>had been making stopped instantly, and the silence that replaced

760
00:42:45.800 --> 00:42:48.000
<v Speaker 2>it was the loudest thing Joe had ever heard.

761
00:42:48.760 --> 00:42:49.360
<v Speaker 3>Three down.

762
00:42:50.119 --> 00:42:52.519
<v Speaker 2>Three creatures lying in the old growth forest on a

763
00:42:52.559 --> 00:42:55.239
<v Speaker 2>mountain side that officially didn't have any creatures on it

764
00:42:55.280 --> 00:42:58.599
<v Speaker 2>at all, their dark blood soaking into the ferns and

765
00:42:58.639 --> 00:43:02.000
<v Speaker 2>the fallen needles, steam rising from the wounds in the

766
00:43:02.039 --> 00:43:05.760
<v Speaker 2>cold mountain air. But it wasn't over, Joe said. The

767
00:43:05.760 --> 00:43:08.920
<v Speaker 2>team leader was on the radio reporting three targets down,

768
00:43:09.239 --> 00:43:12.400
<v Speaker 2>requesting status on the fourth when the world came apart.

769
00:43:13.239 --> 00:43:16.039
<v Speaker 2>The big male hit them from uphill. It came out

770
00:43:16.039 --> 00:43:18.039
<v Speaker 2>of the timber above the ridge like something out of

771
00:43:18.039 --> 00:43:21.360
<v Speaker 2>a nightmare, moving downhill with the force and speed of

772
00:43:21.400 --> 00:43:24.760
<v Speaker 2>an avalanche. Joe said it was the largest living thing

773
00:43:24.800 --> 00:43:27.199
<v Speaker 2>he'd ever seen that wasn't behind a fence in a zoo.

774
00:43:27.920 --> 00:43:31.159
<v Speaker 2>It was easily over eight feet tall, probably closer to

775
00:43:31.199 --> 00:43:33.440
<v Speaker 2>eight and a half, and it was built like something

776
00:43:33.519 --> 00:43:37.119
<v Speaker 2>designed by nature specifically for the purpose of destroying things.

777
00:43:37.920 --> 00:43:40.840
<v Speaker 2>Its chest was a barrel of muscle covered in thick, dark,

778
00:43:40.920 --> 00:43:44.320
<v Speaker 2>almost black hair. Its shoulders were so broad that it

779
00:43:44.360 --> 00:43:47.760
<v Speaker 2>turned slightly sideways to pass between trees that were four

780
00:43:47.800 --> 00:43:51.679
<v Speaker 2>feet apart. Its face was a mask of rage, the

781
00:43:51.719 --> 00:43:55.440
<v Speaker 2>lips pulled back to reveal massive teeth, the brow ridge

782
00:43:55.480 --> 00:43:58.559
<v Speaker 2>casting deep shadows over eyes that burned with something Joe

783
00:43:58.599 --> 00:44:02.960
<v Speaker 2>said he could only disco as fury, not animal aggression,

784
00:44:03.400 --> 00:44:08.960
<v Speaker 2>not instinct fury understanding. This creature knew exactly what had

785
00:44:08.960 --> 00:44:11.199
<v Speaker 2>happened to the others, and it was coming for the

786
00:44:11.239 --> 00:44:14.320
<v Speaker 2>men who'd done it. It covered the distance between the

787
00:44:14.360 --> 00:44:16.719
<v Speaker 2>tree line and the nearest team member in what Joe

788
00:44:16.840 --> 00:44:21.519
<v Speaker 2>estimated was less than three seconds, maybe two. Joe said

789
00:44:21.559 --> 00:44:24.400
<v Speaker 2>later that he'd seen men move under fire, he'd seen

790
00:44:24.400 --> 00:44:27.239
<v Speaker 2>the physical feats that adrenaline and combat can produce in

791
00:44:27.280 --> 00:44:30.639
<v Speaker 2>a human body, and nothing he'd ever witnessed came close

792
00:44:30.679 --> 00:44:34.519
<v Speaker 2>to the explosive speed of that creature. The nearest man,

793
00:44:34.800 --> 00:44:37.199
<v Speaker 2>one of the younger members of the team, managed to

794
00:44:37.199 --> 00:44:39.719
<v Speaker 2>get his weapon up and fire a burst, but the

795
00:44:39.760 --> 00:44:42.840
<v Speaker 2>creature swatted the rifle aside with one hand like it

796
00:44:42.920 --> 00:44:45.039
<v Speaker 2>was a stick, and hit the soldier in the chest

797
00:44:45.079 --> 00:44:48.199
<v Speaker 2>with the other. Joe said the impact launched the man

798
00:44:48.239 --> 00:44:51.840
<v Speaker 2>off his feet. He didn't stumble backward, he didn't stagger.

799
00:44:52.480 --> 00:44:55.280
<v Speaker 2>He was physically lifted off the ground and thrown sideways

800
00:44:55.320 --> 00:44:58.039
<v Speaker 2>through the air, crashing into a tree trunk eight or

801
00:44:58.079 --> 00:45:00.880
<v Speaker 2>nine feet away, with a sound that Joe said was distinctly,

802
00:45:01.199 --> 00:45:04.719
<v Speaker 2>horrifyingly different from any impact sound he'd heard in combat.

803
00:45:06.039 --> 00:45:08.519
<v Speaker 2>And stay tuned for more sasquatch otta see, We'll be

804
00:45:08.599 --> 00:45:16.039
<v Speaker 2>right back after these messages. There was a crack, a wet,

805
00:45:16.320 --> 00:45:19.280
<v Speaker 2>organic crack, and the soldier crumpled to the ground and

806
00:45:19.320 --> 00:45:23.679
<v Speaker 2>didn't get up. The creature didn't pause. It pivoted, turning

807
00:45:23.760 --> 00:45:26.320
<v Speaker 2>toward the next closest man with a speed that shouldn't

808
00:45:26.320 --> 00:45:28.760
<v Speaker 2>have been possible for something that size.

809
00:45:28.639 --> 00:45:29.400
<v Speaker 3>And it roared.

810
00:45:30.360 --> 00:45:33.239
<v Speaker 2>Joe said, the roar at close range was a physical force.

811
00:45:33.880 --> 00:45:36.239
<v Speaker 2>He felt it hit his chest, He felt it in

812
00:45:36.320 --> 00:45:39.559
<v Speaker 2>his teeth. It was so loud and so deep and

813
00:45:39.599 --> 00:45:43.239
<v Speaker 2>so fundamentally wrong that something in his hind brain, something

814
00:45:43.280 --> 00:45:47.119
<v Speaker 2>ancient and pre verbal and utterly beyond his control, told

815
00:45:47.159 --> 00:45:51.559
<v Speaker 2>him to run. Every survival instinct he had screamed at

816
00:45:51.639 --> 00:45:55.519
<v Speaker 2>him to drop his weapon and flee. He didn't, Joe said.

817
00:45:55.519 --> 00:45:59.119
<v Speaker 2>He shouldered his rifle and began firing. Ramirez was firing,

818
00:46:00.000 --> 00:46:03.079
<v Speaker 2>other men were firing. The creature took hit after hit,

819
00:46:03.480 --> 00:46:07.320
<v Speaker 2>rounds impacting its torso, its shoulders, its legs, and it

820
00:46:07.440 --> 00:46:11.000
<v Speaker 2>kept coming. It grabbed a fallen log, a piece of

821
00:46:11.039 --> 00:46:13.599
<v Speaker 2>dead fall that Joe estimated weighed at least one hundred

822
00:46:13.639 --> 00:46:16.440
<v Speaker 2>and fifty pounds, and hurled it at the men firing

823
00:46:16.519 --> 00:46:19.400
<v Speaker 2>on it from the left side. The log hit one

824
00:46:19.400 --> 00:46:22.440
<v Speaker 2>of the soldiers across the legs and put him down, screaming.

825
00:46:23.159 --> 00:46:26.000
<v Speaker 2>The creature charged again, coming at the main body of

826
00:46:26.039 --> 00:46:29.039
<v Speaker 2>the team, and Joe said, time did that thing it

827
00:46:29.159 --> 00:46:34.239
<v Speaker 2>does in combat, that expansion, that slowing where everything becomes

828
00:46:34.280 --> 00:46:38.199
<v Speaker 2>crystal clear and hyper focused. He could see the individual

829
00:46:38.239 --> 00:46:41.239
<v Speaker 2>hairs on the creature's body, He could see the muscles

830
00:46:41.280 --> 00:46:44.480
<v Speaker 2>moving under the skin. He could see the dark eyes

831
00:46:44.559 --> 00:46:47.639
<v Speaker 2>fixed on him, and he knew with absolute certainty that

832
00:46:47.679 --> 00:46:50.360
<v Speaker 2>he was looking at something that intended to kill him.

833
00:46:50.760 --> 00:46:54.079
<v Speaker 2>Joe shifted his aim up. He'd been firing center mass,

834
00:46:54.199 --> 00:46:57.480
<v Speaker 2>but the creature's chest was so heavily muscled, so thick

835
00:46:57.480 --> 00:47:00.639
<v Speaker 2>and dense, that the round seemed to be having mental effect.

836
00:47:01.360 --> 00:47:03.679
<v Speaker 2>He raised his point of aim and fired three rounds

837
00:47:03.679 --> 00:47:06.840
<v Speaker 2>in rapid succession at the creature's head. At least one

838
00:47:06.840 --> 00:47:11.559
<v Speaker 2>of them connected. The creature's forward momentum faltered. It staggered.

839
00:47:12.159 --> 00:47:14.199
<v Speaker 2>Its left hand went up to the side of its

840
00:47:14.199 --> 00:47:17.079
<v Speaker 2>head in a gesture that Joe said was so terribly,

841
00:47:17.400 --> 00:47:21.199
<v Speaker 2>heartbreakingly human that it almost made him stop firing. But

842
00:47:21.280 --> 00:47:25.119
<v Speaker 2>he didn't stop, neither did the others. They poured fire

843
00:47:25.199 --> 00:47:27.920
<v Speaker 2>into the creature, and it went to one knee and

844
00:47:27.960 --> 00:47:30.800
<v Speaker 2>then the other, and then it pitched forward onto the

845
00:47:30.840 --> 00:47:33.519
<v Speaker 2>forest floor with an impact that Joe said he felt

846
00:47:33.599 --> 00:47:36.440
<v Speaker 2>through the soles of his boots. It was still alive.

847
00:47:37.280 --> 00:47:40.880
<v Speaker 2>It was on the ground, face down, its massive body

848
00:47:40.960 --> 00:47:45.159
<v Speaker 2>heaving with labored breaths, blood pooling around it, dark and

849
00:47:45.239 --> 00:47:48.079
<v Speaker 2>thick and steaming in the cold air. It tried to

850
00:47:48.079 --> 00:47:51.960
<v Speaker 2>push itself up, one enormous arm braced against the ground,

851
00:47:52.280 --> 00:47:54.280
<v Speaker 2>and the creature lifted its head and looked at the

852
00:47:54.280 --> 00:47:57.000
<v Speaker 2>men who had shot it, And Joe said the expression

853
00:47:57.000 --> 00:47:59.320
<v Speaker 2>on its face in that moment was something he has

854
00:47:59.400 --> 00:48:02.920
<v Speaker 2>never been able to reconcile with the word animal. There

855
00:48:02.960 --> 00:48:06.400
<v Speaker 2>was pain in that face, there was confusion, and there

856
00:48:06.400 --> 00:48:10.000
<v Speaker 2>was something else, something Joe struggled to name, and finally

857
00:48:10.039 --> 00:48:14.079
<v Speaker 2>settled on the word sorrow, like it knew, like it

858
00:48:14.199 --> 00:48:18.280
<v Speaker 2>understood not just what was happening, but what it meant,

859
00:48:18.519 --> 00:48:21.679
<v Speaker 2>what had been lost. The team leader stepped forward and

860
00:48:21.719 --> 00:48:24.280
<v Speaker 2>put two more rounds into the creature, and it went

861
00:48:24.360 --> 00:48:28.119
<v Speaker 2>down for the last time. The massive chest stopped heaving,

862
00:48:28.760 --> 00:48:31.920
<v Speaker 2>the dark eyes glazed over, The arm that had been

863
00:48:31.960 --> 00:48:35.159
<v Speaker 2>trying to push itself up collapsed, and eight hundred plus

864
00:48:35.239 --> 00:48:38.519
<v Speaker 2>pounds of something that wasn't supposed to exist settled into

865
00:48:38.519 --> 00:48:41.920
<v Speaker 2>the mountain earth and was still. Joe said, the silence

866
00:48:41.960 --> 00:48:45.119
<v Speaker 2>that followed the last gunshot was unlike any silence he'd

867
00:48:45.119 --> 00:48:49.079
<v Speaker 2>ever known. It wasn't the silence of absence, the mere

868
00:48:49.199 --> 00:48:53.840
<v Speaker 2>lack of sound. It was a loaded silence, a heavy, pregnant,

869
00:48:53.880 --> 00:48:57.000
<v Speaker 2>accusing silence that seemed to hang over the killing ground

870
00:48:57.320 --> 00:49:01.639
<v Speaker 2>like smoke. The smell of cordite with that overpowering musky

871
00:49:01.679 --> 00:49:04.920
<v Speaker 2>odor now tinged with the copper tang of blood, and

872
00:49:05.000 --> 00:49:09.280
<v Speaker 2>the combination was nauseating. The forest floor around the creatures

873
00:49:09.320 --> 00:49:14.079
<v Speaker 2>was torn up from the violence of the encounter. Ferns flattened, soil, churned,

874
00:49:14.519 --> 00:49:18.360
<v Speaker 2>bark stripped from tree trunks by ricochets and impacts. It

875
00:49:18.400 --> 00:49:20.280
<v Speaker 2>looked like a bomb had gone off in the middle

876
00:49:20.280 --> 00:49:24.000
<v Speaker 2>of paradise, Joe said. Nobody spoke for a long time

877
00:49:24.079 --> 00:49:27.239
<v Speaker 2>after that. He stood there, looking at the massive body

878
00:49:27.239 --> 00:49:30.519
<v Speaker 2>of the male, at the sheer impossible size of the thing,

879
00:49:31.199 --> 00:49:33.880
<v Speaker 2>at the way its hair was matted with blood and debris,

880
00:49:34.519 --> 00:49:37.320
<v Speaker 2>at the way one of its enormous hands was still curled,

881
00:49:37.840 --> 00:49:40.920
<v Speaker 2>fingers partially closed, as if it had been reaching for

882
00:49:41.000 --> 00:49:44.960
<v Speaker 2>something when it died. He looked at its face, even

883
00:49:45.000 --> 00:49:48.000
<v Speaker 2>in death, even with the damage the rounds had inflicted,

884
00:49:48.519 --> 00:49:50.639
<v Speaker 2>there was something in that face that was so close

885
00:49:50.679 --> 00:49:54.599
<v Speaker 2>to human it made Joe's stomach turn. The brow ridge,

886
00:49:54.920 --> 00:49:58.119
<v Speaker 2>the deep set eyes, the shape of the jaw. It

887
00:49:58.159 --> 00:50:00.000
<v Speaker 2>was like looking at a rough draft of a hue

888
00:50:00.039 --> 00:50:03.079
<v Speaker 2>human face, or maybe a final draft of something that

889
00:50:03.119 --> 00:50:06.519
<v Speaker 2>had come before humans, something older and more primal, that

890
00:50:06.559 --> 00:50:09.800
<v Speaker 2>had taken a different evolutionary path and ended up here

891
00:50:10.320 --> 00:50:13.719
<v Speaker 2>on this mountain, in the crosshairs of men with guns.

892
00:50:14.840 --> 00:50:19.360
<v Speaker 2>The immediate aftermath was all business securing the perimeter, checking

893
00:50:19.400 --> 00:50:24.760
<v Speaker 2>the wounded, inventoring ammunition, calling in a situation report. The

894
00:50:24.800 --> 00:50:28.079
<v Speaker 2>team medic, a steady handed specialist who Joe said could

895
00:50:28.119 --> 00:50:30.679
<v Speaker 2>stay calm in the middle of an earthquake, went to

896
00:50:30.760 --> 00:50:33.679
<v Speaker 2>work on the two injured men. The soldier who'd been

897
00:50:33.679 --> 00:50:36.239
<v Speaker 2>struck by the creature had a broken sternum and three

898
00:50:36.320 --> 00:50:39.760
<v Speaker 2>fractured ribs, Joe said. The medic told him later that

899
00:50:39.800 --> 00:50:42.199
<v Speaker 2>the impact had been so severe that it was a

900
00:50:42.239 --> 00:50:44.880
<v Speaker 2>miracle the man's heart hadn't been stopped by the blunt

901
00:50:44.920 --> 00:50:48.440
<v Speaker 2>force trauma. The kid, and Joe called him a kid

902
00:50:48.480 --> 00:50:51.039
<v Speaker 2>because he was the youngest on the team, was conscious,

903
00:50:51.039 --> 00:50:54.199
<v Speaker 2>but in tremendous pain, and his breathing was shallow and

904
00:50:54.320 --> 00:50:56.840
<v Speaker 2>labored in a way that suggested one of those fractured

905
00:50:56.920 --> 00:51:00.239
<v Speaker 2>ribs might have nicked a lung. The man who been

906
00:51:00.280 --> 00:51:02.840
<v Speaker 2>hit by the throne log had a compound fracture of

907
00:51:02.840 --> 00:51:05.920
<v Speaker 2>his left tibia. The bone visible threw a gash in

908
00:51:05.960 --> 00:51:09.440
<v Speaker 2>his calf, and he was going into shock. The medic

909
00:51:09.480 --> 00:51:12.719
<v Speaker 2>stabilized both of them as best he could, splinting the leg,

910
00:51:13.079 --> 00:51:18.639
<v Speaker 2>administering morphine, monitoring vitals, but they needed evacuation. They needed

911
00:51:18.639 --> 00:51:22.159
<v Speaker 2>a hospital. The team leader called it in and within

912
00:51:22.199 --> 00:51:25.800
<v Speaker 2>an hour a helicopter was inbound. But it wasn't a

913
00:51:25.800 --> 00:51:26.920
<v Speaker 2>military helicopter.

914
00:51:27.559 --> 00:51:28.039
<v Speaker 3>Joe said.

915
00:51:28.039 --> 00:51:31.679
<v Speaker 2>It was a large, unmarked black helicopter with no visible

916
00:51:31.719 --> 00:51:38.360
<v Speaker 2>identification numbers, no branch markings, no unit insignia, nothing. It

917
00:51:38.440 --> 00:51:41.559
<v Speaker 2>came in low over the ridge, flaring hard, and set

918
00:51:41.599 --> 00:51:43.880
<v Speaker 2>down in a clearing about two hundred meters from where

919
00:51:43.920 --> 00:51:47.480
<v Speaker 2>the creatures lay. Before the rotors had even slowed to idle,

920
00:51:47.840 --> 00:51:51.079
<v Speaker 2>men began disembarking. Joe said there were eight or ten

921
00:51:51.119 --> 00:51:56.440
<v Speaker 2>of them, all wearing civilian clothing, dark pants, dark jackets, unmarked.

922
00:51:57.039 --> 00:52:00.480
<v Speaker 2>They carried equipment cases and what Joe recognized his body bags,

923
00:52:00.800 --> 00:52:05.599
<v Speaker 2>but not standard military body bags. These were larger, much larger,

924
00:52:06.199 --> 00:52:10.920
<v Speaker 2>heavy gauge material reinforced, clearly designed for something far bigger

925
00:52:10.920 --> 00:52:14.760
<v Speaker 2>than a human being. The men moved with practiced deficiency.

926
00:52:15.320 --> 00:52:18.280
<v Speaker 2>They didn't acknowledge the soldiers beyond a cursory nod from

927
00:52:18.320 --> 00:52:21.159
<v Speaker 2>the man who appeared to be in charge. They went

928
00:52:21.199 --> 00:52:24.280
<v Speaker 2>straight to the bodies and began their work. Joe said

929
00:52:24.320 --> 00:52:28.599
<v Speaker 2>he watched them examine the creatures, briefly, taking photographs, making

930
00:52:28.639 --> 00:52:32.519
<v Speaker 2>notes on handheld devices, and then bag them. It took

931
00:52:32.679 --> 00:52:36.440
<v Speaker 2>multiple men to move each body. The adult male required

932
00:52:36.480 --> 00:52:39.239
<v Speaker 2>six men working together to lift it into the bag

933
00:52:39.320 --> 00:52:41.519
<v Speaker 2>and then drag the bag to the helicopter on a

934
00:52:41.559 --> 00:52:42.639
<v Speaker 2>makeshift sled.

935
00:52:42.440 --> 00:52:43.719
<v Speaker 3>They'd brought with them.

936
00:52:44.039 --> 00:52:46.400
<v Speaker 2>Joe said, the man in charge, the one who seemed

937
00:52:46.400 --> 00:52:49.199
<v Speaker 2>to be running the recovery operation, came over to the

938
00:52:49.239 --> 00:52:51.519
<v Speaker 2>team leader at one point and spoke to him quietly

939
00:52:51.599 --> 00:52:54.639
<v Speaker 2>for about two minutes. Joe couldn't hear what was said,

940
00:52:55.039 --> 00:52:57.599
<v Speaker 2>but he watched the team leader's face during the conversation,

941
00:52:58.199 --> 00:53:01.159
<v Speaker 2>and what he saw there wasn't anger or frustration or

942
00:53:01.199 --> 00:53:05.239
<v Speaker 2>even fatigue. It was resignation, the look of a man

943
00:53:05.280 --> 00:53:08.360
<v Speaker 2>who was being told something he already knew, something he'd

944
00:53:08.400 --> 00:53:11.719
<v Speaker 2>accepted before the mission even began, and was now hearing

945
00:53:11.719 --> 00:53:14.719
<v Speaker 2>it confirmed in a way that left no room for ambiguity.

946
00:53:15.599 --> 00:53:18.239
<v Speaker 2>When the team leader came back, his face was tight,

947
00:53:18.599 --> 00:53:20.400
<v Speaker 2>and he told the men to pack up their gear

948
00:53:20.480 --> 00:53:23.920
<v Speaker 2>and prepare for extraction. He also told them, in a

949
00:53:24.000 --> 00:53:26.760
<v Speaker 2>voice that Joe said carried more weight than any order

950
00:53:26.800 --> 00:53:29.639
<v Speaker 2>he'd ever been given in a combat zone, that what

951
00:53:29.679 --> 00:53:32.559
<v Speaker 2>they had seen and done on this mountain did not happen.

952
00:53:33.280 --> 00:53:36.559
<v Speaker 2>It would never be spoken of again, not to their families,

953
00:53:37.079 --> 00:53:40.559
<v Speaker 2>not to their friends, not to their chaplains, not to

954
00:53:40.599 --> 00:53:45.920
<v Speaker 2>their therapists, not to anyone ever for any reason. He said,

955
00:53:45.920 --> 00:53:47.960
<v Speaker 2>he understood the weight of what he was asking them

956
00:53:47.960 --> 00:53:51.119
<v Speaker 2>to carry. He said he was sorry, and then he

957
00:53:51.159 --> 00:53:53.519
<v Speaker 2>turned away and went to check on the wounded, and

958
00:53:53.559 --> 00:53:55.960
<v Speaker 2>that was the last time the subject was addressed through

959
00:53:55.960 --> 00:53:56.920
<v Speaker 2>official channels.

960
00:53:57.679 --> 00:53:58.159
<v Speaker 3>Joe said.

961
00:53:58.199 --> 00:54:00.039
<v Speaker 2>One of the things that stuck with him about the

962
00:54:00.079 --> 00:54:04.199
<v Speaker 2>recovery operation was the efficiency of it. These people had

963
00:54:04.199 --> 00:54:07.880
<v Speaker 2>done this before, This wasn't their first time. The way

964
00:54:07.920 --> 00:54:10.639
<v Speaker 2>they moved, the way they had the right equipment, the

965
00:54:10.719 --> 00:54:14.400
<v Speaker 2>right sized bags, the right number of personnel, the way

966
00:54:14.440 --> 00:54:16.639
<v Speaker 2>they knew to bring a sled for the large mail.

967
00:54:17.280 --> 00:54:21.159
<v Speaker 2>None of that was improvised. That was preparation born of experience.

968
00:54:21.800 --> 00:54:24.480
<v Speaker 2>That was an operation that had been rehearsed or conducted

969
00:54:24.599 --> 00:54:28.840
<v Speaker 2>multiple times before. And that thought, more than almost anything

970
00:54:28.840 --> 00:54:32.159
<v Speaker 2>else about the entire experience, kept Joe awake at night

971
00:54:32.880 --> 00:54:36.239
<v Speaker 2>because it meant this wasn't an isolated incident. It meant

972
00:54:36.320 --> 00:54:39.440
<v Speaker 2>this had happened before and it would probably happen again,

973
00:54:40.440 --> 00:54:42.760
<v Speaker 2>Joe said. The civilian team loaded the bodies in their

974
00:54:42.800 --> 00:54:45.599
<v Speaker 2>equipment into the helicopter in under an hour and were

975
00:54:45.639 --> 00:54:50.800
<v Speaker 2>gone just like that. The efficiency was clinical, almost surgical.

976
00:54:51.480 --> 00:54:54.800
<v Speaker 2>Four creatures that challenged everything science and biology and the

977
00:54:54.880 --> 00:54:58.800
<v Speaker 2>natural order claimed to understand about the world. Four bodies

978
00:54:58.840 --> 00:55:01.559
<v Speaker 2>that represented proof of something that millions of people had

979
00:55:01.559 --> 00:55:05.960
<v Speaker 2>been searching for, wondering about, and debating for centuries, loaded

980
00:55:06.000 --> 00:55:10.360
<v Speaker 2>into reinforced bags and flown away to God knows where, erased,

981
00:55:10.920 --> 00:55:15.239
<v Speaker 2>removed from the record, made to not exist. The team

982
00:55:15.320 --> 00:55:18.760
<v Speaker 2>was extracted separately on a different helicopter that arrived about

983
00:55:18.800 --> 00:55:22.880
<v Speaker 2>thirty minutes after the civilian aircraft departed. During that thirty

984
00:55:22.880 --> 00:55:25.440
<v Speaker 2>minutes of waiting, Joe said, the men sat in a

985
00:55:25.519 --> 00:55:29.199
<v Speaker 2>rough circle among the trees and didn't talk. A few

986
00:55:29.199 --> 00:55:32.960
<v Speaker 2>guys smoked. One man, a team member Joe had always

987
00:55:33.000 --> 00:55:36.280
<v Speaker 2>considered among the toughest men he'd ever known, a man

988
00:55:36.320 --> 00:55:39.000
<v Speaker 2>who'd done things in combat that would have earned most

989
00:55:39.079 --> 00:55:41.360
<v Speaker 2>people a medal of honor if anyone had been allowed

990
00:55:41.360 --> 00:55:44.480
<v Speaker 2>to talk about them. Sat by himself against a tree

991
00:55:44.840 --> 00:55:48.360
<v Speaker 2>and cried. He didn't make a sound, The tears just

992
00:55:48.480 --> 00:55:50.639
<v Speaker 2>rolled down his face while he stared at the ground

993
00:55:50.840 --> 00:55:53.840
<v Speaker 2>where the large male had died, at the dark stain

994
00:55:53.920 --> 00:55:56.159
<v Speaker 2>in the earth that was the only remaining evidence that

995
00:55:56.239 --> 00:55:59.239
<v Speaker 2>any of this had happened. They were flown back to

996
00:55:59.280 --> 00:56:03.079
<v Speaker 2>the same un marked airfield they departed from, debriefed by

997
00:56:03.119 --> 00:56:06.599
<v Speaker 2>the same nameless civilian in the same windowless room, and

998
00:56:06.719 --> 00:56:09.880
<v Speaker 2>released back to their regular units within twenty four hours.

999
00:56:10.400 --> 00:56:14.079
<v Speaker 2>No paperwork was filed, no after action report was written,

1000
00:56:14.599 --> 00:56:18.079
<v Speaker 2>no commendations were issued, No medical records for the two

1001
00:56:18.119 --> 00:56:21.480
<v Speaker 2>wounded men mentioned anything about how they'd actually been injured.

1002
00:56:22.320 --> 00:56:25.079
<v Speaker 2>As far as the official record was concerned, those men

1003
00:56:25.119 --> 00:56:27.679
<v Speaker 2>were hurt in a training accident, and the mission to

1004
00:56:27.719 --> 00:56:31.599
<v Speaker 2>the mountain never took place. Joe stopped talking after that.

1005
00:56:32.199 --> 00:56:34.920
<v Speaker 2>He sat there in the booth, staring at his empty glass,

1006
00:56:35.239 --> 00:56:38.360
<v Speaker 2>and I could see his hands were shaking, just slightly,

1007
00:56:38.960 --> 00:56:41.760
<v Speaker 2>just enough to notice. This was a man who could

1008
00:56:41.800 --> 00:56:45.119
<v Speaker 2>field strip a weapon blindfolded, who could put around through

1009
00:56:45.159 --> 00:56:47.960
<v Speaker 2>a playing card at three hundred meters, who could keep

1010
00:56:47.960 --> 00:56:50.440
<v Speaker 2>his hands steady through things that would make most people

1011
00:56:50.480 --> 00:56:54.400
<v Speaker 2>fall apart, and his hands were shaking. I didn't know

1012
00:56:54.440 --> 00:56:56.920
<v Speaker 2>what to say. I mean, what do you say to

1013
00:56:56.960 --> 00:56:59.599
<v Speaker 2>something like that. Part of me wanted to chalk it

1014
00:56:59.679 --> 00:57:03.400
<v Speaker 2>up to the whiskey we'd been drinking for hours. Joe

1015
00:57:03.440 --> 00:57:06.280
<v Speaker 2>was not a man given to tall tales or exaggeration.

1016
00:57:06.840 --> 00:57:10.719
<v Speaker 2>But alcohol does things to people, loosens things up, makes

1017
00:57:10.760 --> 00:57:13.639
<v Speaker 2>the truth and fiction blend together until you can't tell

1018
00:57:13.679 --> 00:57:17.199
<v Speaker 2>where one ends and the other begins. I thought about that,

1019
00:57:17.800 --> 00:57:20.119
<v Speaker 2>But then I looked at his face. I looked at

1020
00:57:20.119 --> 00:57:23.000
<v Speaker 2>his eyes, and I knew he wasn't making it up.

1021
00:57:23.719 --> 00:57:26.480
<v Speaker 2>I'd looked into Joe's eyes and situations where a lie

1022
00:57:26.519 --> 00:57:29.199
<v Speaker 2>could get you killed, where the truth was the only

1023
00:57:29.280 --> 00:57:32.039
<v Speaker 2>thing standing between you and a body bag, and I

1024
00:57:32.119 --> 00:57:34.079
<v Speaker 2>knew what that man looked like when he was telling

1025
00:57:34.079 --> 00:57:37.519
<v Speaker 2>the truth. He was telling the truth. He told me

1026
00:57:37.559 --> 00:57:39.599
<v Speaker 2>one more thing before we left the bar that night.

1027
00:57:40.280 --> 00:57:40.599
<v Speaker 3>He said.

1028
00:57:40.639 --> 00:57:43.840
<v Speaker 2>The thing that haunted him wasn't the big male. It

1029
00:57:43.880 --> 00:57:47.719
<v Speaker 2>wasn't the charge, or the violence, or the sheer, terrifying

1030
00:57:47.800 --> 00:57:48.880
<v Speaker 2>power of the creature.

1031
00:57:49.679 --> 00:57:50.039
<v Speaker 3>He said.

1032
00:57:50.079 --> 00:57:53.119
<v Speaker 2>What haunted him was the juvenile. He said he thought

1033
00:57:53.119 --> 00:57:56.800
<v Speaker 2>about that five foot tall creature every single day. He

1034
00:57:56.840 --> 00:58:00.400
<v Speaker 2>thought about the sound it made, that keening cry, that

1035
00:58:00.519 --> 00:58:03.840
<v Speaker 2>sound like a lost child calling for its mother. He

1036
00:58:03.880 --> 00:58:07.400
<v Speaker 2>said he'd heard children cry in combat zones, in villages

1037
00:58:07.400 --> 00:58:11.000
<v Speaker 2>that had been shelled, in refugee camps, in the aftermath

1038
00:58:11.039 --> 00:58:13.800
<v Speaker 2>of things that no child should ever have to experience,

1039
00:58:14.679 --> 00:58:17.400
<v Speaker 2>and the sound that juvenile creature made was the same.

1040
00:58:18.039 --> 00:58:21.079
<v Speaker 2>It was the same kind of sound, the same frequency

1041
00:58:21.119 --> 00:58:25.239
<v Speaker 2>of distress and terror. And incomprehension, he said, he doesn't

1042
00:58:25.239 --> 00:58:27.639
<v Speaker 2>know what those things were. He doesn't know if they

1043
00:58:27.639 --> 00:58:32.920
<v Speaker 2>were sasquatch or bigfoot, or Gigantopithecus descendants or undiscovered primates

1044
00:58:33.039 --> 00:58:33.719
<v Speaker 2>or something else.

1045
00:58:33.880 --> 00:58:34.280
<v Speaker 3>Entirely.

1046
00:58:34.960 --> 00:58:38.320
<v Speaker 2>He just knows they were alive, they were intelligent, They

1047
00:58:38.320 --> 00:58:41.679
<v Speaker 2>had a family structure, a social bond, a way of

1048
00:58:41.719 --> 00:58:44.519
<v Speaker 2>life that had probably existed in those mountains for thousands

1049
00:58:44.519 --> 00:58:47.320
<v Speaker 2>of years. And his team killed them all in about

1050
00:58:47.400 --> 00:58:50.960
<v Speaker 2>ninety seconds, and then somebody in a black helicopter took

1051
00:58:50.960 --> 00:58:54.679
<v Speaker 2>the evidence away, and the whole thing disappeared like it

1052
00:58:54.719 --> 00:58:59.000
<v Speaker 2>never happened, like they never existed. Joe told me that

1053
00:58:59.119 --> 00:59:01.119
<v Speaker 2>night that he wasn't sure why he was telling me

1054
00:59:01.199 --> 00:59:04.519
<v Speaker 2>all this. He said, maybe it was the whiskey. Maybe

1055
00:59:04.519 --> 00:59:06.360
<v Speaker 2>it was the fact that he was tired of carrying

1056
00:59:06.360 --> 00:59:09.079
<v Speaker 2>it alone. Maybe it was because he looked at me

1057
00:59:09.159 --> 00:59:12.440
<v Speaker 2>and saw somebody who might believe him, somebody who wouldn't

1058
00:59:12.480 --> 00:59:15.280
<v Speaker 2>laugh or call him crazy or report him to somebody

1059
00:59:15.320 --> 00:59:18.400
<v Speaker 2>who'd make his life very difficult. I don't know why

1060
00:59:18.400 --> 00:59:22.400
<v Speaker 2>he told me, but he did. And now I'm telling you,

1061
00:59:23.199 --> 00:59:25.840
<v Speaker 2>I want to say one more thing. Joe isn't the

1062
00:59:25.920 --> 00:59:29.199
<v Speaker 2>kind of guy who makes things up. He's not a storyteller.

1063
00:59:29.719 --> 00:59:33.559
<v Speaker 2>He's not somebody who embellishes or exaggerates or creates drama

1064
00:59:33.599 --> 00:59:36.760
<v Speaker 2>where there isn't any. In all the years I knew him,

1065
00:59:37.000 --> 00:59:39.559
<v Speaker 2>through all the things we went through together, he never

1066
00:59:39.599 --> 00:59:42.880
<v Speaker 2>once gave me a reason to doubt his word, not once.

1067
00:59:43.840 --> 00:59:46.079
<v Speaker 2>And when he told me this story, sitting in that

1068
00:59:46.159 --> 00:59:48.639
<v Speaker 2>booth with the whisky and the country music and the

1069
00:59:48.639 --> 00:59:51.360
<v Speaker 2>neon light from the bar sign casting red and blue

1070
00:59:51.360 --> 00:59:55.480
<v Speaker 2>shadows across his face, he wasn't performing. He wasn't trying

1071
00:59:55.480 --> 00:59:58.199
<v Speaker 2>to entertain me or impress me or get a reaction

1072
00:59:58.320 --> 01:00:01.679
<v Speaker 2>out of me. He was confessed. That's the word for it.

1073
01:00:02.239 --> 01:00:04.679
<v Speaker 2>He was confessing something that had been eating him alive

1074
01:00:04.760 --> 01:00:07.559
<v Speaker 2>for years, something he'd locked away in a box in

1075
01:00:07.599 --> 01:00:09.840
<v Speaker 2>the back of his mind and tried to forget but

1076
01:00:09.960 --> 01:00:13.639
<v Speaker 2>couldn't because some things don't stay in the box. Some

1077
01:00:13.719 --> 01:00:17.079
<v Speaker 2>things have claws and teeth, and they tear their way

1078
01:00:17.079 --> 01:00:19.840
<v Speaker 2>out eventually, no matter how hard you try to hold

1079
01:00:19.840 --> 01:00:22.360
<v Speaker 2>them in and stay.

1080
01:00:22.079 --> 01:00:24.280
<v Speaker 3>Tuned for more Sasquatch oat to see. We'll be right

1081
01:00:24.320 --> 01:00:30.920
<v Speaker 3>back after these messages. Do I think Joe was telling

1082
01:00:30.960 --> 01:00:33.599
<v Speaker 3>the truth? Yeah? I do.

1083
01:00:34.480 --> 01:00:37.880
<v Speaker 2>I believe every word he said, not because I'm naive

1084
01:00:38.400 --> 01:00:40.760
<v Speaker 2>and not because I was drunk, but because I know

1085
01:00:40.880 --> 01:00:43.400
<v Speaker 2>the man, and I know what truth looks like when

1086
01:00:43.400 --> 01:00:45.079
<v Speaker 2>it comes out of a man who's been carrying it

1087
01:00:45.119 --> 01:00:48.079
<v Speaker 2>too long. I don't know which National Park it was.

1088
01:00:48.639 --> 01:00:51.800
<v Speaker 2>I don't know which three letter agency sent the civilian team.

1089
01:00:52.159 --> 01:00:54.599
<v Speaker 2>I don't know where those bodies ended up or what

1090
01:00:54.800 --> 01:00:57.199
<v Speaker 2>was done with them. I don't know if there are

1091
01:00:57.199 --> 01:00:59.719
<v Speaker 2>more of these things out there, though, based on what

1092
01:00:59.800 --> 01:01:03.320
<v Speaker 2>Joe described, I'd bet my life there are. I don't

1093
01:01:03.320 --> 01:01:05.760
<v Speaker 2>know any of that. All I know is what Joe

1094
01:01:05.760 --> 01:01:08.239
<v Speaker 2>told me. And I'm telling you because I think people

1095
01:01:08.280 --> 01:01:11.760
<v Speaker 2>deserve to know, because those creatures deserved better than to

1096
01:01:11.800 --> 01:01:15.880
<v Speaker 2>be erased, and because Joe deserves to have someone believe him.

1097
01:01:16.119 --> 01:01:18.800
<v Speaker 2>Thanks for all of your shows, Thanks for giving people

1098
01:01:18.880 --> 01:01:21.679
<v Speaker 2>like me a place to share things like this. I

1099
01:01:21.719 --> 01:01:24.239
<v Speaker 2>know it sounds insane. I know some people are going

1100
01:01:24.280 --> 01:01:26.239
<v Speaker 2>to hear this and think I'm full of it, or

1101
01:01:26.280 --> 01:01:28.159
<v Speaker 2>that Joe was full of it, or that we were

1102
01:01:28.199 --> 01:01:31.840
<v Speaker 2>just two drunk soldiers telling lies in a bar. That's fine.

1103
01:01:32.320 --> 01:01:34.840
<v Speaker 2>People can think what they want. But I know what

1104
01:01:34.880 --> 01:01:37.360
<v Speaker 2>I saw in Joe's eyes that night. I know what

1105
01:01:37.400 --> 01:01:39.800
<v Speaker 2>I heard in his voice, and I know the truth

1106
01:01:39.840 --> 01:01:40.480
<v Speaker 2>when I see it.

1107
01:01:41.239 --> 01:01:41.679
<v Speaker 3>Matthew.

1108
01:01:42.239 --> 01:01:44.920
<v Speaker 2>That's where the email ends, folks. And I've got to

1109
01:01:44.960 --> 01:01:47.079
<v Speaker 2>tell you, I sat with this one for a long

1110
01:01:47.119 --> 01:01:49.159
<v Speaker 2>time before I decided to put it on the air,

1111
01:01:49.920 --> 01:01:52.880
<v Speaker 2>not because I doubted it. If anything, it's because I

1112
01:01:52.920 --> 01:01:56.079
<v Speaker 2>believed it a little too much, because it confirmed things

1113
01:01:56.079 --> 01:01:59.079
<v Speaker 2>that I've suspected for a very long time, things that

1114
01:01:59.159 --> 01:02:02.159
<v Speaker 2>a lot of you out there have suspected too. When

1115
01:02:02.159 --> 01:02:04.440
<v Speaker 2>I first read Matt's email, I had to get up

1116
01:02:04.440 --> 01:02:07.400
<v Speaker 2>from my desk and walk away. I went outside and

1117
01:02:07.400 --> 01:02:10.400
<v Speaker 2>stood in my yard for about twenty minutes, just staring

1118
01:02:10.480 --> 01:02:12.480
<v Speaker 2>at the tree line at the edge of my property,

1119
01:02:13.000 --> 01:02:15.880
<v Speaker 2>thinking about what I just read, and the thing that

1120
01:02:15.960 --> 01:02:18.559
<v Speaker 2>kept coming back to me, the thing that kept turning

1121
01:02:18.599 --> 01:02:20.679
<v Speaker 2>over in my mind like a stone in a river,

1122
01:02:21.320 --> 01:02:25.320
<v Speaker 2>was the detail about the hikers. The male hiker twenty

1123
01:02:25.320 --> 01:02:28.960
<v Speaker 2>five feet up in a tree, neck broken. The female

1124
01:02:29.039 --> 01:02:33.800
<v Speaker 2>hiker never found, not her body, not her remains, just

1125
01:02:33.840 --> 01:02:39.360
<v Speaker 2>some shredded clothing in one boot, gone completely gone. Now,

1126
01:02:39.400 --> 01:02:41.559
<v Speaker 2>if you've been following this subject as long as I have,

1127
01:02:42.199 --> 01:02:44.519
<v Speaker 2>you know that those details fit a pattern that's been

1128
01:02:44.559 --> 01:02:48.519
<v Speaker 2>documented time and time again. People going missing in national

1129
01:02:48.559 --> 01:02:53.199
<v Speaker 2>parks and national forests under circumstances that defy conventional explanation.

1130
01:02:54.119 --> 01:02:57.639
<v Speaker 2>Bodies found in locations that are inaccessible by normal means,

1131
01:02:58.159 --> 01:03:02.679
<v Speaker 2>places where no accident or animimal attack could reasonably deposit them.

1132
01:03:03.159 --> 01:03:05.960
<v Speaker 2>People who vanish without a trace in areas where extensive

1133
01:03:05.960 --> 01:03:10.440
<v Speaker 2>search and rescue operations turn up nothing, absolutely nothing, as

1134
01:03:10.440 --> 01:03:12.599
<v Speaker 2>if the person simply ceased to exist.

1135
01:03:13.400 --> 01:03:14.159
<v Speaker 3>These cases have.

1136
01:03:14.119 --> 01:03:18.440
<v Speaker 2>Been cataloged, studied, and written about extensively, and the parallels

1137
01:03:18.480 --> 01:03:22.320
<v Speaker 2>between them are striking and deeply troubling. A man found

1138
01:03:22.320 --> 01:03:24.719
<v Speaker 2>twenty five feet up in a tree with a broken neck.

1139
01:03:25.320 --> 01:03:28.400
<v Speaker 2>That's not a bear attack. Bears don't put their victims

1140
01:03:28.440 --> 01:03:32.559
<v Speaker 2>in trees. That's not a mountain lion kill. Mountain lions

1141
01:03:32.639 --> 01:03:35.199
<v Speaker 2>drag their prey to cover, they don't hoist it into

1142
01:03:35.239 --> 01:03:38.320
<v Speaker 2>the upper branches of an old growth fur. There is

1143
01:03:38.360 --> 01:03:41.639
<v Speaker 2>no conventional predator in North America that behaves that way.

1144
01:03:42.360 --> 01:03:45.079
<v Speaker 2>But something put that man up there, Something with the

1145
01:03:45.119 --> 01:03:48.119
<v Speaker 2>strength to lift a full grown adult twenty five feet

1146
01:03:48.119 --> 01:03:51.599
<v Speaker 2>off the ground, something with hands capable of grasping and

1147
01:03:51.679 --> 01:03:55.239
<v Speaker 2>lifting and placing. I've been researching this subject for close

1148
01:03:55.280 --> 01:03:58.199
<v Speaker 2>to four decades. I had my own encounter back in

1149
01:03:58.280 --> 01:04:01.400
<v Speaker 2>nineteen eighty six in the mountains of Georgia, and that

1150
01:04:01.559 --> 01:04:05.679
<v Speaker 2>moment changed the entire trajectory of my life. I've stood

1151
01:04:05.679 --> 01:04:09.360
<v Speaker 2>in front of audiences at conferences, I've been in documentaries.

1152
01:04:09.920 --> 01:04:12.440
<v Speaker 2>I've been deep into the woods and places all over

1153
01:04:12.480 --> 01:04:15.519
<v Speaker 2>this country, listening to people tell me what they've seen

1154
01:04:15.920 --> 01:04:18.119
<v Speaker 2>and what they've heard, and what they know in their

1155
01:04:18.159 --> 01:04:20.760
<v Speaker 2>gut to be true even when the world tells them

1156
01:04:20.760 --> 01:04:25.000
<v Speaker 2>they're wrong. And in all that time, in all those conversations,

1157
01:04:25.360 --> 01:04:27.960
<v Speaker 2>in all those thousands of emails and messages and late

1158
01:04:28.039 --> 01:04:31.159
<v Speaker 2>night phone calls, the stories that scare me the most

1159
01:04:31.280 --> 01:04:34.639
<v Speaker 2>aren't the encounter stories. Don't get me wrong. Those are

1160
01:04:34.760 --> 01:04:38.199
<v Speaker 2>terrifying enough when somebody tells you they were twenty yards

1161
01:04:38.199 --> 01:04:40.760
<v Speaker 2>from an eight foot tall creature covered in hair that

1162
01:04:40.840 --> 01:04:43.960
<v Speaker 2>looked at them with eyes that were too intelligent, too aware,

1163
01:04:44.400 --> 01:04:47.079
<v Speaker 2>too knowing. That's enough to keep you up at night.

1164
01:04:47.880 --> 01:04:50.679
<v Speaker 2>But what keeps me up even later, what truly gets

1165
01:04:50.760 --> 01:04:54.320
<v Speaker 2>under my skin and stays there, are the cover up stories.

1166
01:04:55.039 --> 01:04:58.599
<v Speaker 2>The ones where somebody saw something, or somebody shot something,

1167
01:04:59.119 --> 01:05:01.880
<v Speaker 2>or somebody found something and then the men in the

1168
01:05:02.000 --> 01:05:04.960
<v Speaker 2>unmarked vehicle showed up, or the men in the dark

1169
01:05:05.000 --> 01:05:07.679
<v Speaker 2>suits appeared, or the phone call came from a number

1170
01:05:07.679 --> 01:05:10.519
<v Speaker 2>that didn't exist, telling them to forget what they'd seen.

1171
01:05:11.400 --> 01:05:14.559
<v Speaker 2>I've heard these stories for decades. I've talked to retired

1172
01:05:14.599 --> 01:05:17.480
<v Speaker 2>law enforcement officers who've told me about being called to

1173
01:05:17.519 --> 01:05:21.519
<v Speaker 2>scenes involving large, unidentified creatures and then being told by

1174
01:05:21.519 --> 01:05:24.000
<v Speaker 2>federal agents to write it up as a bear encounter.

1175
01:05:24.719 --> 01:05:27.599
<v Speaker 2>I've talked to forestry workers who found tracks and structures

1176
01:05:27.639 --> 01:05:30.000
<v Speaker 2>deep in the back country and been told by their

1177
01:05:30.039 --> 01:05:32.920
<v Speaker 2>supervisors to leave it alone and not file a report.

1178
01:05:33.800 --> 01:05:36.639
<v Speaker 2>I've talked to military veterans men a lot like Matt

1179
01:05:36.679 --> 01:05:39.320
<v Speaker 2>and Joe, who've hinted at things they've seen or been

1180
01:05:39.360 --> 01:05:41.840
<v Speaker 2>involved in but couldn't talk about because of oaths they

1181
01:05:41.920 --> 01:05:46.320
<v Speaker 2>took and threats that were made. Matt's story Joe's story

1182
01:05:46.679 --> 01:05:49.480
<v Speaker 2>fits a pattern, and I think most of you listening

1183
01:05:49.559 --> 01:05:53.519
<v Speaker 2>know that we've heard the whispers for years. Stories about

1184
01:05:53.559 --> 01:05:57.400
<v Speaker 2>government teams being dispatched into national parks and national forests,

1185
01:05:58.119 --> 01:06:02.079
<v Speaker 2>stories about bodies being recovered and disappearing into classified facilities,

1186
01:06:02.719 --> 01:06:08.800
<v Speaker 2>stories about researchers being threatened, witnesses being silenced, evidence being confiscated.

1187
01:06:09.519 --> 01:06:12.639
<v Speaker 2>We hear these things and we file them away, and

1188
01:06:12.679 --> 01:06:14.519
<v Speaker 2>we wonder how much of it is real and how

1189
01:06:14.599 --> 01:06:18.079
<v Speaker 2>much is smoke and mirrors. But when a combat veteran,

1190
01:06:18.360 --> 01:06:20.119
<v Speaker 2>a man who's put his life on the line for

1191
01:06:20.159 --> 01:06:23.920
<v Speaker 2>this country multiple times, a man whose body served beside

1192
01:06:23.960 --> 01:06:27.000
<v Speaker 2>him in the worst conditions imaginable and never once gave

1193
01:06:27.079 --> 01:06:30.159
<v Speaker 2>him a reason to question his honesty, when that man

1194
01:06:30.239 --> 01:06:32.760
<v Speaker 2>sits down and tells a story like this one with

1195
01:06:32.880 --> 01:06:37.199
<v Speaker 2>shaking hands and haunted eyes, I listen, and I believe.

1196
01:06:38.119 --> 01:06:41.159
<v Speaker 2>I think about that juvenile I think about that sound

1197
01:06:41.199 --> 01:06:45.239
<v Speaker 2>Matt described, that keening cry, and it turns my stomach,

1198
01:06:46.039 --> 01:06:48.679
<v Speaker 2>because if Joe's account is accurate, and I believe it is,

1199
01:06:49.280 --> 01:06:51.920
<v Speaker 2>then what we're talking about isn't just the elimination of

1200
01:06:51.920 --> 01:06:56.280
<v Speaker 2>some mysterious animals. We're talking about the destruction of a family,

1201
01:06:56.960 --> 01:07:00.639
<v Speaker 2>a mother, a father, their child, and an another member

1202
01:07:00.639 --> 01:07:03.519
<v Speaker 2>of their clan, living their lives in the mountains the

1203
01:07:03.519 --> 01:07:06.079
<v Speaker 2>way their kind has probably been living for longer than

1204
01:07:06.119 --> 01:07:10.880
<v Speaker 2>our civilization has existed. They built shelters, they communicated with

1205
01:07:10.960 --> 01:07:14.400
<v Speaker 2>each other, they moved as a group, a family unit,

1206
01:07:14.760 --> 01:07:19.639
<v Speaker 2>through territory, they knew intimately they were, by any reasonable definition,

1207
01:07:19.960 --> 01:07:23.480
<v Speaker 2>a people, not just animals, and a team of men

1208
01:07:23.639 --> 01:07:24.199
<v Speaker 2>was sent in.

1209
01:07:24.119 --> 01:07:24.960
<v Speaker 3>To wipe them out.

1210
01:07:25.440 --> 01:07:28.159
<v Speaker 2>Not because they posed an ongoing threat to the public,

1211
01:07:28.559 --> 01:07:31.000
<v Speaker 2>though I understand that the death of that male hiker

1212
01:07:31.039 --> 01:07:34.400
<v Speaker 2>and the disappearance of the female hiker were horrific and tragic,

1213
01:07:34.840 --> 01:07:38.639
<v Speaker 2>but because their existence was inconvenient. Because if the world

1214
01:07:38.679 --> 01:07:43.000
<v Speaker 2>found out that these things were real, actually real, not legend,

1215
01:07:43.360 --> 01:07:48.119
<v Speaker 2>not folklore, not blurry photographs and disputed footprint casts, but

1216
01:07:48.239 --> 01:07:50.719
<v Speaker 2>flesh and blood creatures that could be shot and killed

1217
01:07:50.760 --> 01:07:55.840
<v Speaker 2>and examined, the implications would be staggering. The scientific community

1218
01:07:55.880 --> 01:07:59.400
<v Speaker 2>would be turned upside down. Every textbook would have to

1219
01:07:59.440 --> 01:08:04.119
<v Speaker 2>be rewritten. The conservation and environmental regulations that govern how

1220
01:08:04.159 --> 01:08:07.840
<v Speaker 2>we manage our public lands would have to be completely overhauled.

1221
01:08:08.679 --> 01:08:15.400
<v Speaker 2>The economic consequences alone, the impact on logging, mining, energy development, recreation,

1222
01:08:15.800 --> 01:08:20.520
<v Speaker 2>tourism would be astronomical. We're talking about an endangered species

1223
01:08:20.560 --> 01:08:24.439
<v Speaker 2>of primate, potentially the most significant zoological discovery in the

1224
01:08:24.520 --> 01:08:28.119
<v Speaker 2>history of science, and the entire apparatus of federal land

1225
01:08:28.159 --> 01:08:31.560
<v Speaker 2>management would have to pivot to protect them. Think about

1226
01:08:31.560 --> 01:08:34.479
<v Speaker 2>how much money is at stake. Think about the industries

1227
01:08:34.520 --> 01:08:37.960
<v Speaker 2>that depend on access to federal lands. Think about the

1228
01:08:37.960 --> 01:08:40.880
<v Speaker 2>political pressure that would come to bear. So they sent

1229
01:08:40.920 --> 01:08:43.119
<v Speaker 2>in a kill team, and then they sent in a

1230
01:08:43.159 --> 01:08:46.640
<v Speaker 2>cleanup crew, and then they told everybody involved to shut

1231
01:08:46.720 --> 01:08:49.960
<v Speaker 2>up and forget it ever happened, And those four creatures,

1232
01:08:50.159 --> 01:08:53.159
<v Speaker 2>that family was loaded into bags and flown away to

1233
01:08:53.239 --> 01:08:57.239
<v Speaker 2>some facility that probably doesn't officially exist, to be studied

1234
01:08:57.359 --> 01:09:00.199
<v Speaker 2>or stored or destroyed. And the rest of us were

1235
01:09:00.279 --> 01:09:03.239
<v Speaker 2>left with nothing but legends and grainy footage and the

1236
01:09:03.399 --> 01:09:06.760
<v Speaker 2>unshakable feeling that we're being lied to. I want you

1237
01:09:06.800 --> 01:09:09.920
<v Speaker 2>to also think about something else. Joe told Matt that

1238
01:09:09.960 --> 01:09:13.720
<v Speaker 2>this happened in the mid nineteen nineties. That's thirty years ago,

1239
01:09:14.359 --> 01:09:17.880
<v Speaker 2>thirty years of silence, thirty years of good men carrying

1240
01:09:17.920 --> 01:09:20.840
<v Speaker 2>a secret that eats at them, that wakes them up

1241
01:09:20.840 --> 01:09:23.239
<v Speaker 2>at three in the morning, that sits in the corner

1242
01:09:23.279 --> 01:09:25.039
<v Speaker 2>of the room when they're trying to have a normal

1243
01:09:25.079 --> 01:09:28.239
<v Speaker 2>conversation with their families, and won't let them forget what

1244
01:09:28.319 --> 01:09:32.319
<v Speaker 2>they did on that mountain thirty years how many other

1245
01:09:32.359 --> 01:09:35.279
<v Speaker 2>teams were sent on similar missions that we'll never hear about.

1246
01:09:36.039 --> 01:09:39.600
<v Speaker 2>How many other families, other clans were eliminated in the

1247
01:09:39.640 --> 01:09:44.680
<v Speaker 2>same cold, efficient, classified manner. Are these operations still happening

1248
01:09:44.720 --> 01:09:48.760
<v Speaker 2>today right now as I record this, Is there a

1249
01:09:48.800 --> 01:09:51.000
<v Speaker 2>team of men somewhere in the back country of some

1250
01:09:51.159 --> 01:09:54.520
<v Speaker 2>national park doing what Joe's team did thirty years ago.

1251
01:09:55.359 --> 01:09:59.399
<v Speaker 2>I don't know, and that uncertainty that not knowing is

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01:09:59.399 --> 01:10:02.840
<v Speaker 2>almost as disturbing as the story itself. I'm not going

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01:10:02.880 --> 01:10:05.640
<v Speaker 2>to tell you what to believe. That's never been my style,

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01:10:06.039 --> 01:10:08.920
<v Speaker 2>and it's not going to start now. I share these

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01:10:08.960 --> 01:10:11.920
<v Speaker 2>stories because I think they matter. I share them because

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01:10:11.920 --> 01:10:15.880
<v Speaker 2>the people who experience them, whether directly or secondhand, deserve

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01:10:15.960 --> 01:10:18.680
<v Speaker 2>to be heard. And I share them because I believe

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01:10:18.760 --> 01:10:22.279
<v Speaker 2>with everything in me that the truth, whatever it is,

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01:10:22.279 --> 01:10:26.640
<v Speaker 2>is better than the silence. Matt, if you're listening, thank you.

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01:10:27.319 --> 01:10:30.000
<v Speaker 2>Thank you for having the courage to write in. Thank

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01:10:30.039 --> 01:10:32.920
<v Speaker 2>you for trusting me with Joe's story. And tell Joe,

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01:10:33.319 --> 01:10:35.199
<v Speaker 2>if he's in a place where he'd want to hear it,

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01:10:35.600 --> 01:10:37.680
<v Speaker 2>that there's a whole community of people out there who

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01:10:37.760 --> 01:10:41.039
<v Speaker 2>believe him, who've always believed, and who aren't going to

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01:10:41.039 --> 01:10:43.960
<v Speaker 2>stop asking questions just because somebody in a black helicopter

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01:10:44.039 --> 01:10:47.600
<v Speaker 2>told us to stay safe out there. Everybody, watch the

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01:10:47.640 --> 01:10:51.520
<v Speaker 2>tree line, listen to the silence, and as always, if

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<v Speaker 2>you've got a story, I want to hear it.

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<v Speaker 1>Did did Di