Speaker 1: While I was in elementary school, my family lived in Lancaster, California,
in the Mahave Desert. I loved that desert and spent
a lot of time on my own, exploring and riding
horses there all by myself. In the summer of nineteen
sixty seven, once I finished sixth grade, we moved north
to Bishop, California, on the eastern side of the Sierra
Nevada Mountain Range. This is where my father grew up.
He had family who lived in nearby Lone Pine, and
they still did. Dad made the decision to move as
a result of a deal with his partner, wherein they
split the business geographically and Dad took over the northern half.
In Lancaster, we spent a lot of time outdoors in
the desert, and this didn't change when we moved to Bishop.
It was an absolutely gorgeous place to live, and my
love of nature grew as I was afforded the same
freedom to roam and explore with my horse. As a family,
we often traveled via our Willis jeep to remote spots
where Dad taught us all about camping and how to
fish and shoot rifles. One weekend, my mom and Dad
me and four of my five siblings went on one
of those camping trips to the mountains. Remote camping is
exactly what it sounds like. There was no campground, no showers,
and no playground for kids. It was just us in
nature with no one else around for miles and miles.
We set up camp at the end of the long
clearing that had a nice fire burning as night fell.
I loved camping back then. There just wasn't anything like
sitting around the fire with my family and taking in
all the feelings and sounds of the great outdoors. Eventually
I needed to answer nature's call, and I had it
away from the firelight along one side of the clearing.
Once I felt I was far enough away from the camp,
I squatted down behind a bush to empty my bladder.
Our camp was to my right. As I stared straight
across the clearing, suddenly I saw a large creature step
out of the brush on the other side of the
clearing about my one o'clock. It made no sound, as
if it were trying to be quiet. I was immediately
gripped with fear at the sight of something I had
never seen before. I processed every possibility through my mind,
but I could not identify it. I checked the bears
off my list. This thing was big, but it wasn't
shape quite right. Plus it looked too natural walking on
two legs. I decided it had to be some kind
of ape, not a chimp, gorilla, or orangutan. It was
six feet tall and had a coat of medium length
hair that looked golden or rusty. The full moon in
the glow of the campfire provided more than enough light
to allow me to see it incredibly well. I was terrified,
but I was also an awe and more than a
little curious. I sat perfectly still and made absolutely no
sound as I watched it walk along the edge of
the clearing away from the camp. Once it got to
about my ten o'clock, it stepped back into the woodline
and continued on its way. I held my position as
I listened to its footfalls in the forest until I
couldn't hear it anymore. Only then did I stand up,
pull up my jeans, and head back to camp. As
a young girl trying to analyze and understand what I
had just witnessed, the thought occurred to me that it
might be a member of my family messing with me.
But I could see everyone sitting around the fire at
the opposite end of the clearing from where this thing
had slipped back into the woods. It had to be
a real animal. There was just no way someone could
be wearing a costume. Nevertheless, I made up my mind
not to mention it to anyone, just in case. I
figured if someone was messing with me, eventually they would
be unable to resist saying something, so I kept my
mouth shut and the subject never came up. That seemed
to solidify my analysis that it had to be a
real animal. My parents had been struggling with the business
in their marriage as well. That next summer, they closed
a business up north and sold our house in that
beautiful place. We moved back down below, as we called
southern California, back then to Riverside near Los Angeles, where
my dad got a new job. A few months later,
my parents divorced nineteen seventy two, Mom remarried, and we
moved to Texas. I never told a soul about my
encounter for years. Initially I didn't want to cause it
any additional stress on my parents, who were having their
own problems at the time. And then life went on
and I pushed it to the back of my mind.
Sometime in the nineteen nineties, I ended up sharing the
entire experience with my husband. He is an open mind
and trust me to be a person of integrity, and
therefore he accepted my story as real. We've since spent
a great deal of time analyzing my encounter, and he
has had some excellent thoughts about it. First, since what
I saw wasn't a giant of over seven feet tall
like so many others have reported, he suggested that perhaps
it was an adolescent. He also thought that its young
age might have predisposed it toward curiosity about the strange
creatures that had entered the remote territory. Also, the young
sisquatch might have become alarmed when I left the campsite
and headed closer to his observation point. My husband thinks
it remained close to the edge of the clearing to
reduce noise in the possibility of being seen. Finally, he
posed the theory that the fact that it never made
eye contact with me or even looked in my direction
could be indicative of an animal behavior, and that they
think if they can't see you, you can't see them.
These thoughts all seemed feasible to me. I cannot describe
the creature's facial features because I saw only the profile.
I did not notice any bad odors, but I might
have been upwind. Nor did I hear any sounds other
than when it exited the clearing back into the brush.
Around two thousand and eight, I finally mentioned my experience
to my two sisters. I don't recall any reaction from
my younger sister, but my older sister responded by laughingly
saying that I must have seen a bear. I mentioned
this because I want others who have had been ridiculed
that I know how it feels. My advice is to
not worry worry about what others think. Trust yourself to
know what you saw. Well, it may seem incredible. I
do know what I saw. I grew up to be
a wife and a mother of three, a Girl Scout leader,
a Sunday school teacher and a Little League team mom,
a room mom at my kid's school, and a licensed,
successful self employed realtor in Houston, Texas. Then I returned
to university and became a registered nurse, and I retired
after twenty five years. I'm sixty three years old now
and enjoying my retirement in Costa Rica with my dear husband.
I'm not a believer in Sasquatch, i am an observer
of Sasquatch. And then she signs off, peace and love, Celeste.
It was a weekend of my wife's Baby Steps five
K Memorial Run at Tannehill State Park in Alabama. A
couple of our friends founded the run to raise money
for the Amelia Center division of Children's Hospital of Birmingham.
The Amelia Sinner helps grieving parents who have lost children
cope with the loss and learn how to go on
with their lives. Abby and I, unfortunately know firsthand how
consuming and unforgettable such a loss can be. We lost
our twin boys, Brady and Brody, to pre term labor
at five months. They weren't able to survive the delivery.
This is hard to type and even think about, even
thirteen years later, but God has blessed us with three
handsome and fun loving boys. Bryant is eight years old
we call him bub Bub. Barrett, who we call bear Bear,
is three, and our two year old, whose real name
is Brandon, we call Bobby. In addition to our sons,
my nephew Nick or Nick Nick has lived with us
as our own son all his life. I know what
you're thinking, why Bobby, Well, we thought it was because
Bear Bear, who was one when Bobby was born, was
trying to save baby when we realized he could save
baby just fine, So we figured we just wanted his
brother to be called Bobby, and we went with it.
We always stay in an old time cabin at Tannehill
for three or four days of the week of the
five k run, and this year was no different. We
loved being in nature, and we especially love hiking, so naturally,
after the run was over and Abby and the little
ones were taking a nap, Nick, Bryant and I grabbed
our walking sticks and we hit the trails. We had
previously asked the rangers and the other park employees which
trail would be the longest and least occupied. We'd been
coming here the same month every year for the past
eleven years, so we'd already been down roughly ninety percent
of the hiking trails. Everyone suggested the same trails we'd
already won, except for the maintenance man. He said we
should follow the creek that runs through most of the park,
but to be careful because it connected to privately owned
land that is nothing but acres and acres of woods.
The no trespassing signs have all fallen over the years,
but if we stayed with the creek, we would be okay.
We followed the maintenance man's instructions and had been walking
the creek bank for a little over two hours, stopping
to examine every bug, rock, and stick the boys found interesting.
When we came to a fork in the trail, we
stayed true to our course, but the creek trail soon ended.
We weren't willing to call it a day yet, so
we headed back to the fork and took the other
trail to see where it went. It led us uphill
away from the water, and we hiked another forty five
minutes when it brought us back down to what must
have been the wildest, deepest section of the creek. It
was a peaceful, serene southern landscape that made me want
to sit down on the bank and watch the clouds
as the setting sun turned the sky to evening hughes.
We were relaxing while I was letting Bryant beat me
at tic tac toe because I'm a dad and that's
what dads do. When Nick pointed out the fact that
everything had gone silent. There were no bugs chirping or
birds singing at all. Even the wind had gone silent,
secretly reveling in Bryant's glee at each momentary lack of
reason that would lead another victory for him. I glanced
over at Nick and realized he was sitting there frozen
in a shivering, frightened state. I jumped up and went
over to him, with Bryant holding onto my belt loop.
As we approached, we all saw movement in the thick
brush on the opposite side of the creek, and then
it happened, to our surprise, a massive rock the size
of two tree truck tires stacked together, came flying out
of that brush at an impossibly high arc and then
splashed down in the creek, sending water up in the
air like a geyser, with ripples in every direction. I
was stunned for a minute or so, but I managed
to come around, and then I grabbed Brian and literally
had to shake Nick back to reality. Nick, you take
the lead, I said, laying out our exit strategy. Bryan,
stay in the middle and hold Nick's walking stick in
one hand in mine in the other. I'll follow in
the rear, and that'll keep us joined together and still
give us room for fast walking. I had barely finished
my instructions when a rain of small rocks came flying
across the creek, some hitting the water, but most hitting
the bank at our feet. We didn't wait another minute.
We took off, heading towards the main trail and back
to our cabin. Once we made it out of the
woods and safely back to cabin, we sat on the
porch and pondered what had happened. Nick would not, actually
could not talk about what he saw that had frightened
him into a near catatonic state. Brian only saw the
rocks being thrown. I don't know what to think, but
I can assure you I didn't see a catapult set
up across the creek, nor any other mechanism that could
throw a two hundred pound rock that high and that far.
It made me think though about how far it could
throw me. I am one hundred and seventy five pounds,
so I know I could be thrown as far as
the rock, and Brian is only about sixty five pounds.
He'd land a mile away. It was eerie and weird,
and I replay it in my mind frequently. The scariest
thing to me was the lack of sound from the woods.
What would make birds, squirrels, deer, frogs, and even the
breeze stop. I'd love to hear your thought and the
thoughts of your other listeners. I still have trouble coming
to a conclusion about the events of that day. It's
like I know what it was, but my mind won't
accept it. Oh and by the way, on our way out,
we realize we'd strayed thirty minutes outside of the park's
borders into the neighboring woods. Well, Gary, first, let me
say I'm really sorry that you and your wife lost
your twin babies. That's heartbreaking. I've had some friends lose
some kids and and there's no way for any of
us who haven't to know how that feels. But all
we can do is have some sort of non experience
empathy for you. It just must be horrible, I mean,
good grief. I just lost a dog about a month
ago and it just kills me every day. But moving on,
What a great dad you are and mom, what great
parents you are to take your kids on these trips
and to organize that five k run. What a great
way to give back and use your path to do
something good with But taking your kids on hikes, man,
that's a great idea. These boys must be rare to
go all the time. And I don't really know what
to think about your experience. I mean, I cannot imagine
anything that's natural in the woods that could throw a
two hundred pound rock as big as two truck tires
off of a bank and into the middle of a
creek and blow water up in the air and then
throw rocks at you and things like that. Yeah, I
would have got out too, but I think if it
was me, I would have trouble accepting it too. But
you just have to realize that these things are probably there,
and they don't like us in their habitat. They've been
pushed out of so much habitat already, although we still
have millions and millions and millions of acres for these
things to live. I mean, if you travel across the
United States, we haven't encroached that much, at least with
urban development. Maybe with the farming and the agriculture we've ruined,
not really ruined, but we've transformed the land to suit
us and to benefit us and to provide for us,
and that does push them out. But you know, there
are so many sightings and so many experiences like this
that apparently the population is doing okay, because based on
the encounters, if you just took every story that I've
done up to this date and you counted in, assuming
every one of them is a separate entity or a
separate being or Bigfoot, We've got hundreds and hundreds of
these things in the United States and they're all over
the place. They're in Canada, Alaska, the continental United States.
Haven't heard anything from Hawaii yet, but even internationally, we've
got stories from Europe and different places, the Philippines and
Indonesia and different Australia is a place where we get
a lot of stories. And so, you know, I'm kind
of contradicting what I say. I don't know that that
encroachment on their habitat is that big a deal, because
there seems to be a lot I'm around. But again
I'm just rambling saying whatever comes to my mind. But Carrie,
I really appreciate the story, and again, best wishes to
your family and I appreciate what you're doing. Thanks Carrie.