Speaker 1: They went down to Salt Fork State Park here in
Ohio and tried to recreate it, and they couldn't come
close to it. And these guys were PhDs. We literally
grew up with this thing. I mean, I've got so
many different stories. Some things happened back there, and then
the city completely redid that whole area land the area
that all this happened when I was growing up. Literally
took them two years to put the concrete towpath down
because things were happening. So a lot of my friends
that were police officers, and even the chief and police
at the time was telling me what was going on
down there, asking me if I knew how to handle it,
and I'm like, just ignore it. I mean, it's not
going to hurt you. It never did us. But I
kind of looked at it and look back now, it's
like it played with us, you know, like we were
as entertainment.
Speaker 2: Let's just go ahead and get into it. Take us
back to where it all started. How did this whole
journey get started for you personally?
Speaker 1: Well, I have to say that I got into it
by stories. This is before the whole in search of
Leonard Niemway with the Big Pot in the Patty film.
You know, obviously not before the Patty film, but before
it aired and became national news and all that. Where
I grew up, I spent every summer with my grandfather
in this area that this happened. And he had about
an acre and a half of a backyre, just a long,
narrow strip that went, you know, a good three four
hundred feet from his house to a back alley, and
beyond that was a farmer's field. To the left of
his house was nothing but wilderness and woods. Now, mind you,
this is in the city limits. So when I say
wilderness and woods, I don't mean deep forest. But you
could definitely spend a week down there and not be
seen by anybody. Yeah, but my parents, you know, my dad,
my uncles would tell us, you know, hey, don't go
down there after dark. They'd tell us stories that they had,
you know, that they grew up with a grassman. And
I'm thinking, yeah, okay, the grassman, you know whatever. And
I mean some of their stories were pretty intense, and
I wanted to believe it because I didn't think my
dad my uncle would mess with us the way that
you know, that way, sure, But the biggest thing that
happened is me and my cousin. Like I said, we
spent every summer over there, and my uncle was a
Vietnam vet, so he showed us how to make lean
two's and cover our tracks, and you know, when we're
done camping down there, make it look like we weren't
down there at all. You know. We learned all that stuff,
and I loved it, and we went ahead and was
doing this for probably three years from the age of ten,
so I was thirteen. We spent every summer down there,
a week at a time, down in these woods, just
camping and fishing in the ear Canal and just being kids,
you know. And one day me and my cousin were
walking through a sand pit area and there was a
footprint that at quick guests, I would say eighteen to
nineteen inches long and at least six inches deep. Now
it was soft ground, but me and my cousin, you'd
leave your shoe print, you know what I mean, it
wouldn't be a deep pot. Well, this was a barefoot
and we seen one, and then we about five four
or five feet further up we seemed like the heel
of another inprint, but it was going up rock at
that time, So just the heel was into the earth,
and we went to get back, got my uncle and
he came down there and looked at it and said,
I don't want you guys coming down here tonight. So
you know, we himed in the hall and you know, okay,
you know, well they went to bed and me and
my cousin are like, let's go catfishing. Now. It was
about it was it was about a forty Now, we
really weren't thinking about the footprint at that time. It
was about a forty five minute walk from my grandfather's
house down the path to the canal, and we're walking
down there and just you know, bsing and kicking rocks,
and about fifteen feet up in front of us, we
heard a like a grunt, but a deep, full of bass,
shake your bones style grunt. Now, mind you, we've been
growing up back here, so we knew noises back here.
Neither one of us ever heard that. We both stopped dead,
didn't see anything, but just got this heavy, Oh my god,
we're gonna die feeling well. We went back home and
we told my uncle about it, and he's like, you know,
I told you not to go back down here. So
he had called my father and the next night my
dad came over after work. I'll never forget this. He
brought my younger brother with him, and then another uncle
showed up. So now there's three adults and three kids.
I'm like twelve years old at the time, my cousin's thirteen,
and my younger brother is nine. So we go back
there and we're thinking, this is where they're going to
try to scare us, you know what I mean, the
whole Yeah, this is where you know, Dad's going to
mess with us. So we go down there and we
kind of split up a little bit. You go down
about and maybe at half mile, and there's a fork
in this service road down there. Now, if you go
to the right of the fork, and twenty minutes you'll
be on a main street. If you go to the
left of the fork, you're walking the length of the canal.
You'll go down to what we call the footbridge, and
you know, just nothing but woods throughout. Okay, you got
about twenty minutes before you get the canal. But during
all that you're walking through woods and weeds and you know,
So we kind of split up a little bit, and
I end up with my uncle and my cousin ends
up with my dad and we're not away from each
other for more than maybe ten minutes, and my dad
and cousins starts creamond bloody murder, and we, you know,
go back and we find each other. We're in the weeds,
and you know, they're saying we've seen something, we've seen something,
and I'm looking at my cousin and he's kind of
got this grin on his face, so I'm like, Okay,
you didn't see nothing. This is all part of the well.
The neighborhood dog went down there with us. Now we're
on one side of the path and the past about
I don't know, seven eightpeet wide. It's just a service road,
and the dog's ruffing through the weeds on the other
side of the path, directly across from us, and we
hear this. This dog would yelp and bark, but always playful.
We heard this little dog's just barking like it was
going to tear something up. Then we heard a yelp,
and then we heard this dog trotting through the weeds
as fast as it can. It got about two steps
out of the weeds on the road, and this big
arm came out of the weeds and swung at this thing.
It hit the hindquarters of the dog. The dog went
like five feet in year, spun around, hit the ground,
and booked. I mean, it was gone. So we're all
sitting there like in amazement and shock. Well, this thing's
in the direct path to get back to my grandfather's.
It's on that side of the the service road. We're
on the other. So we're sitting there for a little bit.
We don't hear nothing. Well, we try to move through
the weeds to stay hidden, and we get up to
where about where the fork in the road's at, and
my other uncle's missing us. We can't find us, so
we're down to three adults or two adults and three kids.
So my dad and my uncles say, look, stay right here,
you see anything, you go straight down this road get
to Grandpa's. So my cousin comes up with this idea
that you know, how I can Africa or something animals surround,
you know, getting a circle so they see all sides.
So we do this in the fork of the road. Now,
mind you, we're thirteen, twelve and nine, okay, you know.
Speaker 2: Sure, well, you know.
Speaker 1: We're thinking we're pretty intelligent, right, now like we got
this thing planned out, you know, and the service road
is a great, big white gravel maybe the size of
a hardball, and you know for baseball. Yeah, so we
grabbed these rocks and we're thinking, you know, me and
my cousin both play baseball. We're both on traveling league,
so you know, we knew the game, we knew how
to throw. We're thinking we got this. You know, this
thing shows up, we just start plastering with rocks. Now
this is all before the story of us knowing Bigfoot
through rocks, you know. I mean, we're completely bigfoot dumb
at this point, you know. Yeah, And this thing comes
out from the side of the weeds that we were on,
about ten feet down the paths from this fork in
the road. So I mean, it's close, and it takes
two steps, and it's in the middle of the in
the middle of the service rode, and it just turns
its shoulders and head and looks at us. Now we're like,
each one of us kids are facing a direction down
the path. This thing is looking me dead in the eyes.
So me and my cousin are firing these rocks at
this thing. And it had to be the most epic
stupid maneuver I ever did. We could see these white
rocks hitting this thing. It didn't make a grunt, it
didn't make a an inclination. These things we're hitting it,
but we see the rocks hitting it. So it takes
two steps and now it's on the other side of
the path, you know, the service road, and it's where
we have to go. It hits that and there's a
big old I don't know if it's an ochre of berth,
but there was a big old tree right there, and
it like stood up against the tree and then vanished.
Now I'm not saying it disappeared, but it's almost like
the tree and that thing became one in the dark,
you know that you lost the silhouette of it. Yeah,
And we're screaming, and we just take off the other way,
like I said, you know, in a few minutes, you
hit a main road and that's where we ran. It
was the opposite direction, you know, it was to a
main road. We figured, you know, we'll get our dad's attentions.
We're running, you know, and eventually my dad and my
uncle come out. They can't find my uncle and they're like, okay,
we're just gonna walk down the main road back and
then make a few turns and get back to Grandpa's house.
So that's what we did. We stayed out of the woods.
We walked in the middle of a four lane road.
You know, we ain't going nowhere.
Speaker 2: Near the woods.
Speaker 1: So we get back to my grandfather's house and they
each grab a gun and they go down there and
they start looking for my other uncles. Well we heard
two gunshots. Now, remember I told you this is city limits.
So gunshots go off, you're committing a crime. And we
heard two gunshots go off. And we're sitting there waiting
for our dads to come back. And my dad comes
in with my uncle and his shirt is just shredded,
the whole front of it. And I guess this thing
wanted to get past my dad without killing my dad
more or less, and just kind of took his hand
and shoved him aside and booked, you know, pasted him. Now,
my dad's test was red, his shirt was ripped, no,
you know a little bit of like scratches. But I
don't know if that was for my dad following or
the actual thing pushing him. But but you know that
that was the very first time that I realized they
weren't bs and us there's something back here. And I
stayed out of the woods for a whole six months,
and then after time we're back in the woods again.
But we literally grew up with knowing this thing was there.
We'd get pelted with rocks, you know, little rocks, nothing big,
you know, nothing that could hurt us. We'd go down
there to the camp like we'd hear I don't want
to say stick snapping. It sounded like trees breaking. But
we never seen anything for a long time after that.
But I mean that's sort of you know, excitement was
scarier than I'll get out when it was going on,
but after it was over, we kind of want to
do it again. Yeah, And I guess that went on
for like five years. I was twelve the first time
I actually seen it, But we had, like I said,
you know, we go down their caps and we get
peedded with rocks. I never heard no whoops or howls
or anything like that, but you get a feeling, you
know what I mean, like like you know you're being
watched too. There's there used to be wild dogs down there.
We found dead wild dogs, We found deer with their
heads written backwards. Yeah, it just I thought everyone had,
you know, knew this was there, and I would talk
to people about it. And the thing is, now that
whole area that was woods has been flooded on purpose
by the Parking Recreation Department of the State of Ohio.
Speaker 2: So you think they did that to run these things
out of there.
Speaker 1: I know they didn't. And they didn't run them out
of there. That I don't. I almost I almost think
this thing because it only happened from the months of
June to mid September, and then we'd have nothing happening
in the winter. Nothing would happen in the winter. But
the thing is, I was telling you before we went
on the air, they put a towpath in here. This
is right along the Erik Canal, and they it's probably
three city blocks long from the one road to the
other roads that the towpath comes out on. Now, three
quarters of that was in I call it the Grassland's home,
you know, the wooded area that we grew up in.
It took two years for that because when they had
their equipment down there. You know, there's always a path
there for a towpath, but they can't, you know, put
pavement in there. They had a security company watching their
equipment down there, you know, after hours and at night.
A security company lasted three days and they quit. I
mean the entire company said we're not coming back taking
this account. So they had a couple off duty Acron
police officers go back there and do it. And I
guess the hydraulic lines of these big dozers and backos
were being ripped apart. Wow, not cut, but being pulled apart.
And the tracks have been looked like someone was trying
to pull the tracks off these bulldozers. They wouldn't get
pulled off, but they get messed up enough to wear
hours to fix it, you know, that that sort of thing.
And at the time, I was real good friends with
the chief of police for you know, Rakran, and he
said that they're just going to open up the pumps
or turn off the pumps that goes to Firestone and
let that flood. And to this day it's still flooded.
It took about six months for this whole thing to flood,
and they keep it flooded because it's right. It's the
pumps used to run the water from the canal into
the firestone plant to help call the machines so that
part of the canal would never freeze. But now that
they've done that, when they run the pumps into the canal,
the water alls start to receive because they run it
in for a couple weeks at a time and then
open the pumps back up to fill up, you know,
the whole wooded area. But if you look it up,
it's a blue herrings preserve for blue herrings to nest.
Speaker 2: So they've kind of secured it state level or federally.
Speaker 1: That part is federally on because the street that my
grandfather lived on, they have put a cup businesses up
and all that land is federally own. One of the
guys that run a dump truck company has his shop
back here, and he was telling me that he has
to rent his parking lot from the federal government, you know,
federal parks. Yeah, and if they have a camera, security
camera that the park Service can have access to. The
rent for his parking lots only one hundred dollars a month.
So there's something going on back there.
Speaker 2: Clearly, and this is this isn't the first time I've
heard about this type of situation occurring either. My old
research area years ago whenever I was a boots on
the ground researcher. Our main research area was inside of
a national park here, and that park, they would go
into very specific areas where there wasn't a lot of traffic,
you know, not a lot of public traffic, but they
were areas that we frequent in a lot because there
was activity going on there, and they would shut them
down for months on end to do these different projects
or whatever. And they did all kinds of things. And
one of the things that they did was shut down
a huge trail system so they could go in and
pave it, and it took them months and months and
months to do. And another time they did like a
controlled burn of the area and got rid of all
the cedar trees in the area, which you know, was
kind of a big deal where we were researching that.
And they've just done projects like that all over the place,
it seems. I was even looking at a map the
other day right outside of town to a spot that
I was talking to a colleague about that I had
visited years and years ago, and I was looking at
it on you know, Google Maps recently to see what
it looked like now. And they've done the same thing there.
They've gone in and closed it down and paved it
and clear cut it and everything else, and it's just
awfully coincidental that that happens.
Speaker 1: Well, well, okay, you actually were on the ground, you know,
boots on the ground, researcher. Let me ask you a question.
Have you ever heard of the Joe Ball camp site?
I think it's in Missouri.
Speaker 2: It doesn't ring a bell, okay.
Speaker 1: Well, one of the other podcasts that I used to
listen to and communicate it with, I can't think of
the guy's name, but he wrote a book actually as
a series of books out and I started listening to
him and I kind of got had to chuckle to
myself because of you know, I'm an Army ranger. Okay,
I was in the Army. I was with the seventy
fourth Ranger Regiment, and we did a lot of stuff
at Fort Lewis back when it was a military base
in Washington State. And they sat us down our third
night there and told us now that this came from
my CEO, and the sergeant major was right there. And
my sergeant major had no sense of humor, so I
can't see this being any type of joke. And he
was telling us that bigfoot are in the area. If
you see one, don't try to follow it, don't try
to engage it, don't try to harass it. It will
leave you alone. Well, I don't know if you know
anything about the military as far as I mean, we
have ranges that we shoot on, but when you're out
doing exercises inside the States, you're not given live AMMO.
If we fire live AMMO outside of a range area,
it wakes a lot of people up in DC. I mean,
it just there's no way you're going to get around it.
They plot all told us they're here. Don't don't try
to track them, don't try to engage them. And I mean,
you're talking to special forses, you know, and you're you're
a lot of the guys are like, yeah, right, Well
I've got history when I was growing up with these things,
you know what I mean, I ain't engaging it, you
know what I mean. There's there's you know. But anyway
back to this Joe Ball campsite or campground. Army Corps
engineers would shut it down every so often. But this
guy wrote a book and I can't think of his name,
but he's an ex police officer and he's now in
the Bigfoot and dog Man and things like that. And
he wrote this book called the lake View Monster or
the lake View Man or something like that. It's based
around uh, I don't know if you know her, like
Doug Wee's a different form of Bigfoot, supposed to like
a base eater, Okay, based around one of those. And
it's killing these kids and people in this town. And
it keeps going back to the Joe Ball campsite or campground. Well,
the Joe Ball campground is real. I looked it up,
and the Army Corps engineers has shut it down due
to safety reasons, is all they would list it ass
But this guy said he was out there doing the
shoot for the book cover with his publicists. They were
just taking pictures of the woods, not expecting to have
anything happen. And on the interview I heard he said
he had a dog man standing in the woods that
he didn't even see until they looked at the picture.
But he won't post that picture, so I don't know
how credible it is. Right, But in the story, this
w Sheriff is fighting this creature, you know, these creatures,
and he US military comes in.
Speaker 2: To help him.
Speaker 1: And it branched down into whole other stories of the
US military has a group with all the branches of
the military that select people to come in and take
out cryptids that have become a nuisance. And it kind
of made everything click. You know, my time at Fort
lewis growing up. This sort of thing happening, you know,
with them flooding this area. And this is just my
own opinion. I have nothing to base it on, but
I don't think it's literally literally like the Pentagon and
stuff keeping big put a secret. I think the organization
that has the most to lose is the forestry.
Speaker 2: Industry because of the dollars.
Speaker 1: I mean, how much what do they harvest out of
the national force. I know they to pay bukou buck
to take lumber out of there. And if these things
are proven and admitted to be real, you got to
protect the habitat, so the forest, you know, the the
lumber industry is going to take a hit and then
turn the forest interest is going to take it a
hit because they ain't gonna be paid for all that.
I don't know how anybody can say that for sure,
they're not real. I mean I don't know about you,
but like I said, I've had, you know, that experience,
you know, actually seeing one, and what I've seen it
was about seven and a half, was tall, but hunched
over sort of, and its one arm was almost dragging
the ground. But their hands are all the way down
to their knees at least, you know. When that thing
stood and looked at us, it just you could see
the one hand swing, you know, and it just it
had to be interest from the ground.
Speaker 2: And it never made any like sounds or anything like
that whenever you're hitting it with the rocks.
Speaker 1: No, none at all. I mean, not even a you know,
an inhale or a gas. But when it got to
that tree, you know that we heard it then, but
it was nothing like what me and my cousin heard
and we were walking under go capfish and that scared me.
And that was even before I seen this thing. I mean,
it scared me to death. And I think in Fort Lewis,
when I was up there, if I would have heard that,
then I've been begging to be discharged, you know. I
mean I've spent time, you know, in Iraq, and it
just yeah, hearing that, knowing what I have, you know,
blanks at that. But the weapon that I had, I
might as well be shooting a piece shooter at it.
You know. I've talked to guys that say they have
shot it but it didn't drop. And I'm like, well,
would you have. One guy shot it here in Akron
with a thirty got six for about sixty yards out,
and I'm like, I should have at least knocked it down.
He goes, it's screamed and ran off, and he goes,
I know I hit it, you know, And I'm like,
I've seen this guy's trophy wall. He knows how to shoot,
you know. But when me and my wife had a
chance to buy a house, I literally said I want
to live by the canal. So I bought a house.
I am literally five thousand feet from the canal. I'm like,
you know, I still go down there, and you got
to sneak in at night because you know it's a
park now and you can't be in it after dusk.
But I mean I go down there and I just
I get the same feelings. Yeah, there's something back here.
You know. Whether I'll see it again, I don't know.
Speaker 2: Now, we were talking earlier before we started recording. You know,
you were on Monster Quest years ago talking about the
Ohio grass Man YEP.
Speaker 1: Season three, episode three.
Speaker 2: How did that kind of all come about? And you know,
I want to hear about the nests man, what were
those like?
Speaker 1: Okay, Well, I've been more open with the whole big
put subject. My dad had a lot more encounters than
I did. Okay, And I don't feel right telling his
encounters because anyone who listens says it's hearsay, you know
what I mean, because I wasn't there. But I believe
it a wholeheartedly, you know, I mean, there's not a doubt.
But back in nineteen ninety five we were listening. I
don't know if you really used to listen to Coast
to Coast with Art Belt.
Speaker 2: Oh, of course we used to.
Speaker 1: Listen to Artmel religiously. And they had a guy over here,
a guy that was on the show that spent five
weeks in the woods that kind of connect to where
all my encounters happened. He spent five weeks back there
and seen human but never nobody ever saw him. And
you know, come to find out, he was next Green Beret.
He was just going back or checking the food supply.
Seeing him something that big could live back or without
being seen and yeah, he did it. So we went
and had reached out to this guy and wanted to
tell him our story. Well, he put us in contact
with a few researchers at Ohio State University, and there
was Jody Cook was one of them, and then a
couple other guys that I won't even say their names.
But in nineteen ninety five they came up and we
took them back there. Now that was before all this
was flooded. You know, it was still woods. It was
still like it was when I was growing up, you know,
And we were telling our stories to the guys and
showing them where certain things happened and where we used
to camp. And there's those big metal towers that they
run high tension wires along. Yeah, there's a couple of
those back there. And we were walking that path, you know,
the cut path that they make for all those and
we were, you know, walking through all that and showing,
you know, the guy's the story. Well, were walking to
this edge of this weed line and right there's a
nest and they're like, well, what is that And I'm like, well,
I call it big puts ten And they're like, what
I said, We see these all the time, and they're
all they're all made like this, and they're all laid
down inside with twigs that have been carried to them.
They're not from trees that are around this, you know,
they've been laid in there. And the nest was about
fifteen foot long, about six and a half foot high,
and it was almost like a dome, but it was
completely covered all but a little hole about three foot
in diameter. I mean you literally had to get down
and crawl into it, but you couldn't see anything. Like
you get in there, you can't see it. You know,
you're completely him. And they're like, man, I would love
to go inside that. And I'm like, there ain't no
way I'm not going inside that. You know, that hole.
You won't be able to see me in there if
something's in there, you know. So they kind of made
the hole bigger and they're like, yeah, there's nothing in there,
you know they did. They had a fleer and they're
signing a fleer in there, and there's like, we got
no heat signature. You know, it's twelve degrees cooler in
there that it is out here. And so I said, sorry,
you make the hole big enough, and all three of
you guys are standing right there, then I'll get in there.
Well I got in there and they took a picture
of me in there, and that is the picture that
airs on the Ohiograssman episode.
Speaker 2: So what was it like inside of there?
Speaker 1: Everything was There's only five inches of padding on the
on the floor, on the on the ground. I mean
they there was sticks, there was leaves, there was I
mean just it was like a bed literally, I mean
five inches of padding. I mean you step in it,
you sink.
Speaker 2: Wow, there was loss in there, but.
Speaker 1: You're in there now. I was scared of that hanging
a bye. I got in there and the stench was
on god, in there just it's almost like a wet dog,
sulfur trash smell, you know, all in one. But it
was rank in there. So I didn't stay there very long,
but I can literally you lose contact with the outside
when you're in there. It was so well built, and
it just I mean I leaned on the side of
it and nothing. It didn't fall over, it didn't my
hand didn't go through it, you know. Yeah, but yeah,
it just it was a weird feeling being in there.
Speaker 2: How many of these things were there?
Speaker 1: We found two of them when we had those guys
down there the spot. No, they were probably about a
thousand yards apart, like in the edge of a clearing,
like on the weed line with the edge of a clearing.
And then the other one was on the another clearing,
on the other side of the you know, like the
other side of the cutpath for the towers. Yeah, like
they were opposite sides of that cuppath. Like if they're
in there looking, they're both looking at the cuppath. So
I don't know if it would be like an amberge spot,
but it was. It was kind of comical because they're like, well,
I don't know, it could be just like tumbleweed, know,
tuble we'd mean, but like that not that big, not
that hollow, no patting, you know. But Jody Cook called
me and my dad about two and a half months
later and said, look, don't talk to those guys anymore.
They're they're running around with your story. You know. There
was a write up, somebody wrote a book. One of
the guys that did this with us wrote a book
Bigfoot in Ohio, and basically word for word told me
and my dad's story. They changed our names obviously because
I would have sued him so quick and made their headspin.
But then the Akron Beckon Journal picked it up and
ran a story about it, and I ended up calling
that reporter saying, look, this is not how it went.
This is not this, this is not this. And she
later on got involved with podcasting, and after I gave
my story to another podcast, she came on the air
a week later and said that I was full of crap,
that that area was always flooded like that, that you know,
it was more flooded than not flooded, that the pictures
that I talk about monster quests are not taken there.
That I'm like, okay, you know. So I contacted Jody
Crook and asked him for the coordinates because he went
back up there a couple of times, and he actually
GPS to pin dropped the coordinates, and I sent it
to her. I said, you say any more stuff like this,
I'm I'm gonna put this out. You're you're lying, You're
trying to, you know, benefit your own career, you know. Yeah,
I mean I had police chief involved. I had police
officers involved because they were told don't go down there
without three or four backup, you know, units with you
and carry his heavy weapons you want to carry so
they know there's something back there.
Speaker 2: Yeah, this wasn't just an area where you and your
family were claiming stuff was happening. Other people were experiencing
it too in the same area.
Speaker 1: Oh yes, yes, I mean there was a guy that
used to drive an old German staff when I was little,
and he used to drive down the you know, because
the road after my grandfather's turned into a dirt road,
and the only thing down at the other end of
this dirt road was a junkyard. He would go down there,
park and then drink. And we'd see him go down
there at night and come back the next morning after
he you know, woke up or sever it up, whichever
the case may be. And there was a couple of
times that we heard him hollering and hooping and his
car be flying up the street and we're like, yep,
grassman got him. But one night he come running up
the street, left his car down there, and we never
seen him again. We watched him run past my grandpa's house.
I was probably nineteen at the time. Watched him run
past my grandfather's house. Yeah, I was goes home on lead.
It was not right around Christmas and he come running
past my grandfather's house and he never run back out
his car.
Speaker 2: Wow.
Speaker 1: A week later my grandfather said a toke and he
came down and got it. But it goes back to
we never had anything happen after middle of September, So
I don't know if that's what scared him or but
something spooked him out that you know, he took, probably
that old German staff guard man and he just he
something left it.
Speaker 2: I know there's no way to really know for sure,
but do you think something happened specifically to cause them
to decide to go in there and tear the place
up and flood it out.
Speaker 1: Well, I think if they were going to open it
up like they did, I mean it's it's a major
walking path, and I really think that when they went
down there. According to the people I've spoke with, I'm
not going to say their name, but a couple of
our council were council members at the time, when's the mayor,
then the police chief, they were having so much happen
to the equipment down there that they stopped that part
of the towpath skipped over and flooded that before the
company'd come back in and just lay the payment down. Now,
once that happened, it only took him two days to
lay the payment down, but it took him two years
to get those two days in. But I honestly, I
honestly think the wrong person got scared down there, and
that's when they kind of like, Okay, we got to
figure something out. Because there's too many houses around. You
can't go down on a hunt, and you can't apply
a black helicopter in here and nobody see it, you
know what I mean. You don't have that luxury, so
you got to do something else. But I honestly believe that, Yeah,
I mean all that areas, there's mines all over the
place around here, and there's a trustle down there that
literally if you go on that trust so you could
drive a Volkswagen bug in it and come up all
the way out past Hakercant Airport about thirty five to
forty miles. So there's tunnel systems, there's caves, there's mines.
I think flooding it was the easiest way to deal
with the situation. Yeah, I mean it sucks because it
was beautiful back there. I mean there was weeping willows,
there was a little pond in the center about in
the center of the swooded area. I mean it was great.
I mean that was my childhood and the documentary film
with small Town Monsters. We went down there and filmed
it on the towpath and we're telling the guy me
and my dead both. You know, this is all woods.
You couldn't see all this, you know now, it's just
dead trees there, you know, haven't fallen over yet, you know.
And there's no way you need a herring sanctuary. I'm sorry, no.
Speaker 2: No, I mean here in Oklahoma, those things are everywhere.
Speaker 1: Well they're everywhere here too, That's what I mean. Why
do you need a sanctuary? So it's just it kind
of makes me think that there's some shoddy stuff going on.
Speaker 2: You mentioned earlier, you know, hearing sticks breaking and getting
little pebbles thrown at you and stuff. Whenever you're down there.
What was going on whenever they're throwing stuff at you? Specifically,
it was usually after midnight, and it only happened in
certain areas.
Speaker 1: Like if we'd start getting pelder with rocks and we'd
move five hundred feet down the canal, they wouldn't follow us.
So I want to think that it was a kind warning,
Hey you're too close to something, or you're messing up
what we have going on, or you know what I mean.
It was I never other than that one time, you know,
when I was twelve and actually seen it. Because I
don't know who you are, but that's going to scare anybody.
I don't care if you're a big research you're not
what You're ten to twelve feet away from this thing.
You can't help but be scared. I mean, it was
a sickening feeling of my gut, you know when we
heard that. Well, and you know, it's before I knew
anything about that infrasound thing and things like that. But
I almost think, if I think back, me and my
cousin might have been hit with something like that. Now
I don't know, but I'm just spitballing here because we
both felt sick to our stomach, dizzy. Now, I know
fear can do that too, and I'm it was either
fear we got hit with infrasound, But it was just
a sickening feeling. The one time we were down at
the footbridge, which literally is just a drain pipe, like
a four foot diameter drain pipe and a grated walkway
over it that goes well fifteen feet across the canal, okay.
And we were down there standing on that and there's me,
my dad, my uncle, and my cousin. Again we were
in separable. We were standing down there. We heard something
moving through the swampy area, the slashing, you know, and
we're waiting for somebody to walk out, you know, like
you know, we a homeless guy or you know something,
because it's probably been six eight months before anything's happened,
you know, we just kind of it's moved on, it's
not here. And all of a sudden, we started hearing
and I don't want to say sticks. I want to
say these are at least saplings being snapped, because it
would echo. It literally would sound like a shotgun going off,
and we're like what, you know, we all instantly thought
what it was, you know, without saying, you know, the
grassman's back. But it felt completely different that time than
any other, like this was a very strong warning get out,
you know, like, okay, if there's a nest back there,
that's a breeding nester, a nursery, we might have been
too close, yeah, you know, and we took its warning
after about ten of those things snapped and we were like, okay,
we're gonna go ahead and leave. Let's just walk along
the you know, the path which is now the towpath,
but you know, it was just a four foot path
along the canal the bank there. We just were just
gonna walk along here. You know, we made noise the
whole time we were going, and we were being paced out.
Never seen it, but heard it. You know, it was
walking probably ten foot in the woods right with us.
Didn't grunt, didn't make any aggressive sounds, but you could
hear it walking. It wasn't a hiding the fact that
I'm walking you out.
Speaker 2: And how long did it pace you guys?
Speaker 1: All the way to the edge of the woods by
my grandfather's house, I mean all the way out. And
it never did that before, you know what I mean,
it would mess with us, we'd hear it, but usually
once we made the turn, like we're heading back to
my grandfather's street and you could see the street lights
and stuff, we wouldn't hear anything. After that. This thing
went all the way up until we crossed over a
steel cable that blocked the road from the service road there,
and it all the way up. I mean we crossed
over that that wire that stretched across and it was
probably seventy five yards to my grandfather's house. He was
the first house on the street. And we heard that
thing all the way up until we hit the driveway.
Then we didn't hear it no more.
Speaker 2: Now do you think that was kind of like a
boundary for them or do you think they'd come up
around the houses and stuff?
Speaker 1: Oh? I knew they come up from the houses. There
used to be apartment projects. There was my grandfather's house,
another house, and then four apartment complexes right there, like
four apartment buildings. Yeah, And we would see the thing
and the farmers steal behind our grandfather's house. We would
see it in the back, you know, by the woods,
right along the apartment buildings. I mean, it didn't hide
from us. It's almost like we're friends, you know, I
know them, they know me. Now, not the type of
friends are all going to go hang out with, But
I mean I almost think that they were used to
us because we spent so much time back there, and
with what my uncle showed me and my cousins, we
took care of where we were at. We didn't come
back there in trash the place. We didn't, you know
what I mean, we respected the wood, and I almost
think that that was okay. These guys are okay. Now
we started wandering around, that's usually when crap would happen,
you know, don't come this way, you know what I mean,
and it make a few things. We'd turn around and
leave us alone, you know. So I don't know, I
don't want to say it was friendly. I mean I've seen,
like I said, there was junkyard dogs. There was wild
dogs back there. Their heads were just like you grabbed
the bottom of their jaw and pull their head all
the way back to their back. We seen like twenty
of those dogs throughout my time back there, just ripped apart.
Speaker 2: And this was out in the woods or.
Speaker 1: Yeah, the junkyard dog the back of the junkyard didn't
have a fence, so they would come out into the woods.
But they wouldn't mess with you until you got to there,
you know, to the junk yard. Yeah, but they yeah,
they were all over the place. Years later, I met
a guy that used to work nights at the Junkyard
as a night watchman, and he said he fired his
three fifty seven and something out there there was making
all kinds of noise and banging on metal, and you know,
I'm like, well, I'm not going to tell you what
it was because you're not going to believe me anyway.
But you know, you're three fifty seven wouldn't have done nothing.
Speaker 2: So I know you don't want to retell your dad's stories.
But with this being your grandfather's house, the events that
happened to your dad and your uncle and everything, was
this the same area.
Speaker 1: Yes, yes, my dad moved into that house. He was
born in fifty three. They moved in there in fifty six,
so he spent his whole life. You know, my grandfather
moved out there in ninety nine is when he moved
out of his house. So all that time we were
back there, you know. I mean, I'm fifty five now,
and from nineteen, let's say I turned eight and seventy,
So from seventy eight on, I would go camp back
in those woods, you know, even by myself. Times were different,
but yeah, I mean I would even go camp there
by myself.
Speaker 2: So stuff was happening in this general area for years
and years and years. Oh yes, oh yes, yeah, that's
really interesting. It's kind of rare that you find places
like that.
Speaker 1: Well, the thing is, if you draw I don't know
if you're familiar with Ohio, I mean, but you go
from the Kyahaga Valley National Recreation Area, which is basically
the whole top of Ohio bend patches, but the big area.
If you draw a straight line from there to Salt
Fork State Park, which is a big foot hotspot in Ohio,
my little sections right, you've got to go right through.
Speaker 2: It, right in the middle.
Speaker 1: So I almost think that they're migrating and they just
spent some time back there.
Speaker 2: You think that's like a travel corridor.
Speaker 1: I do, I really do.
Speaker 2: Yeah. I do have some friends up in Ohio that
actively researched, and I can't talk about it too much,
you know, out of respect for them giving away locations
in area. Like you're saying, you know, Salt Fork has
become a well known hotspot, a little too well known
for a lot of people exactly. But there are a
lot of areas that connect up to Salt Fork. That
activity is happening, and they're finding all sorts of stuff.
Speaker 1: Well, it's like Hawking Hills here in Ohio is starting
to have a lot of you know, yeah, activity, Ashland County,
Ohio is having a lot of activity. The thing that
amazes me about the whole Bigfoot community, you got so
many people that if you don't believe they're part of it,
then you're not a believer, right, And that's the wrong
way to do any type of scientific research. I mean,
he's come out and said it. It's already been known.
I mean, I don't know if you're affiliated with the
BFRO or anything like that. But Matt Moneymaker at the
school an accurate Okay, he graduated from the university here.
He knows about my story. You know. He's like, you know,
if there's any I don't know what they call it now,
the WU or whatever, I don't want to hear leave
that part out. Well, no, there's not really any WOO.
But if there was, it's part of the story. It
goes with it, you know, and I just I just
want to He's got to be open to it. You know,
I'm not necessarily saying I believe you know, big pots
an alien or can teleport or anything like that. But
I'm not opposed to it either. You know, something happens
to change my mind, and so be it.
Speaker 2: I've talked to a lot of people, and there's you know,
a handful that I very much value and respect their
opinions and theories on the subject. However, I have yet
to meet anyone that I believe they know for sure
one way or the other about any aspect of it.
There's a few things we can tell you for sure,
that they're out there, that they can walk up right,
that they're covered in hair. You know, we know that
much from eyewitness accounts and everything. But beyond that, I
don't think anybody knows anything.
Speaker 1: Well, I'll tell you what I like. I said the
one for visual I had the thing was massive. I
mean it was. It's I hear people say four or
five hundred pounds, man, I'm I'm even pushing more than that.
I'm saying eight to nine hundred, maybe one thousand pounds
as bulky as this thing is. I mean, now, I
get it ways hard to guess, and you know, I
was young, but just the sheer mass alone, and everybody
knows muscle weighs more than fast, and the thing didn't
look fat. It looked muscular, you know, and it just
it left me at all. Now. I watched the film
with Patty and I'm not saying real or not for
that because I wasn't there. To me, it looks convincing
as all get out. But I've also seen some other
videos on the Internet that if AI wasn't around, I
would say, yeah, they could be it. But now that
AI is so relevant and popular with everybody, I almost
look at every video on the Internet is most likely Aiah.
Speaker 2: Videos and photographs and things like that at this point
are just for entertainment purposes only as far as I'm
concerned exactly. I mean, that's just the unfortunate reality of it,
unless I'm involved in taking the footage myself or it's
you know, somebody I know personally.
Speaker 1: Here's the thing. It also gets everyone's like, why is
the picture always so blurry? Why is it always so
out of focus? I can tell you firsthand. Okay, I
mean I've been in firefights. Okay, your blood pressure goes up,
you lose feeling in your fingertips. If you're trying to
hold a camera still and every muscle in your body
is contracting and shaking, every picture's going to be out
of focus. It's gonna be blurry. It's gonna be even
if you if that's what you're going out there to
find when you see it, if you've never seen it before,
you're not prepared. And I mean it's been years since
I seen it, okay, But I am not gonna lie
to you. If I see it again, I'm probably gonna
be just as scared as I was the first time
I seen it. But it doesn't change the fact that
I know what I'm looking at.
Speaker 2: Whenever you talk about the size and the mass of
the one that you saw that you got a clearer
view of. You mentioned earlier about it kind of blending
into the tree and you lost it silhouette and couldn't
see it anymore. Uh, something that large? How did you
lose it silhouette against a tree?
Speaker 1: This wasn't a little tree, okay. I mean, granted it
was bigger than the trunk with wives. I mean the
shoulders had to be three and a half four foot across, right, okay.
And when this thing went against the tree, it didn't
just stop, okay. It kind of trying to think of
the best way to explain it, picture yourself walking against
its tree instead of going around it. You almost hug
it to go around it. I didn't see it go
past it.
Speaker 2: You know what I mean, yeah, so it could have
put itself, you know, the tree between you and itself,
and you kind of used the tree as a blind spot.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but he is wider than the tree. Now, like
I told you before, I'm Army ranger. It was a
seventy fifth Ranger regiment. I know how to look at silhouettes.
I learned this after this incident. You know. Like I said,
I was twelve years old when this happened, right, But
when I'm at Fort Lewis now, mind you, Like I said,
I only have blanks and we're on a training op. Okay,
five days on the woods. All you have is your
ruck and your gear. I don't think I had a
good night sleep during that, you know, whole time out
there because I'm laying there and I look up and
you see a tree, and then you like, blank in
the trees doesn't look the same.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Now I'm trained to look for silhouette, you know what
I mean. It got to the point where I would
keep my night vision on the whole time. They're like,
you're going to burn batteries on. I'm like, I don't care.
I can see. Oh you're not letting that story good
to you? Just stop. Yes, I am. You know what
I mean. You don't understand, right, you know, It's just
it's not that I was going to do anything if
the thing if I got another look at it, but
I still wanted to get a look at it. Yeah,
I want to see what's going to kill me if
that be the case. I don't believe that every big
put out there could be a monstrous killer. I almost
think that they're not like a human. There's good ones,
there's bad ones. There's ones you just don't know about.
And I kind of think it's the same with them.
I mean, you get down in the southern parts of
the country, and the big put down there seem a
little bit more mischievous, I don't want to say violent,
but more mischievous. You get to the Pacific Northwest, where
there's not as many people, it has more room to roam.
They're more shy and try to stay away from humans.
And I think the ones in the eastern part Ohio, Pennsylvania,
West Virginia look at humans as a little nuisance, not
going to do anything to you. But yeah, you might
be able to mess with them a little bit. Don't
give them little bit, don't give them too much, you
know what I mean?
Speaker 2: Yeah, where is your thoughts at at this point in
life about what these things are?
Speaker 1: Again, just my thoughts, my opinions. I think they're flesh
and bloods. I just think they're another form of animal.
I mean, in between the Great Apes and US. If
you'd have to put them on the you know, the
evolution thing. I think they're in between like the Great
Apes and US.
Speaker 2: Do you think they'll ever be proven to exist?
Speaker 1: I think so, I really do. I think so. I
think it's going to get to the point where they
can't deny it anymore. I mean, I believe there are
scientists out there that have proof that they are being told.
You don't or that, I mean, I don't. I don't
think it's gonna be proven on the TV show. I
mean I love watching Expedition Bigfoot, but that's strictly entertainment.
They're not going to prove it on that because I mean,
if they were to prove it, I mean, the last
season was pretty cool how it ended with the footage,
but TWOV shows over if you prove it, no point
having a TV show. So I think that those shows
like Finding Bigfoot and Expedition Bigfoot and the whole Josh
Gates thing, I think it's strictly entertainment. I mean, Josh
Gates got some pretty good proof of the Eddy and
he got laughed at. But I mean I really think
they're scientists out there that are already known. I'm not
talking just about Jeff Meldrum and things like that. I
mean actual biologists and zoologists. I think they know it's there,
but they they out a reputation alone. I mean, the
government can ruin anybody. And if you that that's your
livelihood and you come out and say yeah it's real,
your livelihood's gone.
Speaker 2: Yeah. There's no money in it for sure. No for
people trying to prove it, especially in the scientific community.
I mean that's something that's obviously talked about. You know
a lot about how to get scientists on board and everything. Well, scientists,
you know, that's their job. It's not just a hobby
for them, and they get funding to research and do
certain things. And if they're not getting funded to do that,
that's just the way it is.
Speaker 1: So well, I'm going to turn it back on you.
What's your thoughts on it. I mean, obviously you believe
or no, I mean, but oh yeah, do you think
it's going to be proven.
Speaker 2: I don't think so. I'm kind of of the mindset
that they already know. The powers that be whoever they are,
already know these things are out there because I know
they're out there. You know they're out there. If two
guys like us can go out there and have an
encounter and sightings and see these things and all these
other people have, then of course they know they're out there.
They've already studied them, they've already captured one. For whatever reason,
they've decided we're not supposed to know about them. And
so I just think that's the way it is. I
think that's how it's always going to be.
Speaker 1: I hope you're wrong. You're probably not, but I hope
you're wrong. I love for the day where you know,
I'm watching the news and they break in and you know,
breaking news Bigfoot has now proven to be exists. Oh wow.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm going to keep on fighting the good fight.
Speaker 1: I got a long list of people I'm gonna call
if that ever happened. See I told you yeah, because
of my army buddy. See, I wasn't overreacted.
Speaker 2: Yeah, well, Bob, I appreciate you coming on here and
sharing your story and talking to me.
Speaker 1: Man Hey, it was a pleasure. I appreciate it. Thank you.
Speaker 2: And if you've had your own encounter with Bigfoot or
something else you can explain and you like to share
your story on the podcast, email me at Bigfoot Crossroads
at gmail dot com. Check out the website Bigfootcrossroads dot com.
You can find links to social media, past episodes, merchandise,
everything you need all in one place. And until next time,
remember there's something in the woods.