Speaker 1: I was not a believer until I was twenty four
years old. It was nineteen ninety and I was visiting
my parents in West Virginia. As soon as I came
into the house, my mom told me what she had
found on the property. There were eight inches of snow
on the ground and a half inch of ice on
top of that, the kind you can walk on without
breaking through. She had taken the grandkids out to play
when over by the well she found footprints eighteen inches
long and seven feet apart. They came out of the
woods at the top of their yard and led down
to an artesian well, where it looked like the creature
knelt to get a drink, and then continued on down
through the yard onto the county road. But along the
way it stopped at my mother's feed pile. All the
snow and ice had been pushed away, and every piece
of corn was gone, even the ones picked out of
the frozen dirt. A year or so later, I was
deer hunting from a tree stand on the property with
my rifle when I heard something two hundred yards away.
I thought it was a big buck that I'd been
waiting for, since it wasn't making any effort to be quiet,
but as it got closer, I started to get disappointed.
It was walking upright, not on four legs. It was
probably just someone walking through the woods. I thought, whoever
was messing up my hunt was being extremely loud about it,
cracking sticks and splitting trees. And then came that smell.
It was so horrible that I thought I might get sick.
I listened to this guy. I ruin my hunt for
a minute, getting more and more scared with each lumbering
step that he took. Even with my rifle at my side,
I realized something wasn't right. I needed to get out
of there, and I ran all the way back to
my parents. I was so upset and out of breath
that I was shaking. My mother asked me what was wrong,
and after I calmed down, I told her and my
dad what had happened. My dad said that I was nuts,
but I know what I heard and how it made
me feel. Even though it happened thirty years ago, I
still get a sinking feeling when I think about it.
Since then, I now believe there are things out there
we know nothing about. I can't say for sure that
it was a bigfoot, but I know it's the closest
I ever want to come to one. I'm retired now
and I lived in West Virginia for the last twenty years,
but I still haven't gone hunting back in that place.
Thank you for giving people like me a platform to
share our experiences and get some of this off our chest.
God blessed Shorty. In the late nineteen seventies in southeast Missouri,
sixteen years old and a farm had around mid July,
I was plowing tall soybeans with a fifteen eighty six
International tractor pulling an eight inch roll plow. That was
pretty big stuff back then. That day was payday, and
as the day war on, my boss told me to
follow him to a small, thirty acre field that I
had never been to. When I finished, he told me
that I'd be done for the day. I wasn't complaining
about that. I could roll through thirty acres in an
hour and start my weekend early. So I followed him
out to the secluded, little fenced off farm somewhere back
in the Boonies near an old farmhouse, and we turned
in and got to work. I was done in an hour,
and when I pulled my plow up and started back
to the entrance of the property. I noticed a five
inch black irrigation pipe running across the dirt drive. I
stopped within about twenty feet of it the tractor and
park and wondered who had laid this pipe there while
I was working and for what? But I didn't care.
I was going to move it. It was Friday afternoon,
there was a paycheck waiting for me, and this thing
was in the way of me and my weekend. The
thing was, I couldn't see the beginning or the end
of it. One side was running through an old, overgrown
fence line on my left, and the other end was
coming out of the tall Johnson grass to my right.
I climbed down from the tractor and walked within four
feet of it. When I saw it shimmer, I stopped,
not really understanding why it would do that. Then I
stepped back and I realized that it was moving. I
looked to my right and watched it taper off into
a tail and then slide across the drive in front
of me. It was no pipe, It was a giant snake.
I jumped into the cab of my tractor in one move.
Let me tell you I needed a beer at that point,
and I needed one now. I hauled asked to the
shop where my boss and my uncle were waiting for me.
They were already feeling the weekend and were ready to
go until they saw my face. My uncle asked what
in the hell happened to me and why I was
so pale? I ask, have either of you seen big
snakes around them bottoms down there? Hell? Yes, my boss
shouted and then told me he'd once seen one that
was six feet long. I took my check from him
and shook my head, saying that's not very big, and
then I left. People know I'm an obs kind of guy,
and when I tell the story, everyone's faces turns like
a shade lighter. All of us grew up farming those bottoms,
and many folks I know have seen some strange stuff.
I know I've seen my share. I am an old woman,
and I've had many encounters with all of North America's
large animals, as well as sasquatch. I've listened to lots
of stories about people going out into the woods hoping
to have an encounter. But let me tell you this.
If you're thinking about going out into the great outdoors
to try to see a sasquatch. I suggest that you
reconsider I've known that something was out there since I
was eight years old, when one morning at five am,
my sister and I were in our barn milking, and
one stuck at six foot long arm inside. Once, when
my mother and two sisters and I were down by
the river, one came out and stood right next to
my sister while we picked berries. Always respected them in
their territory, and when I encountered one, I always left
him alone. If you study the characteristics of this animal,
you'll see that bigfoot is not a violent creature by nature. Well,
with that said, it could turn violent if it's surprised
or cornered. Humans are no different. I've had close encounters
with other animals far more violent than sosquatch. I was
hunting mule deer one day when I walked up on
two moose and they were just five feet away. I
took cover behind a bush and prayed they hadn't seen me.
It must have worked, because they kept going with my blessings.
Anyone who knows about moose attacks knows how lucky I got.
There was another time a cougar stalked me to within
twenty feet. I had my pistol in hand, and when
that cougar jumped out and took off, it scared me
so bad that I completely forgot my pistol. And not
long after that, I was surrounded by a pack of
coyotes when I was deer hunting. They were moving in
for the kill when my husband showed up and saved
my life. Don't you know that I fell in love
with my husband all over again that day. Another time,
a big grizzly bear came into our camp at five AM,
and I woke up eyeball to eyeball with that thing.
I could have petted him if I wanted to. I
grabbed my flashlight and I held it between his eyes,
hoping the light would keep him calm. Meanwhile, I held
back my little chihuaba, who was trying to kill that
grizzly bear. That bear tore off like a bat out
of hades when my husband shot in the air to
scare it away. Well, here's what I'm saying. If you're
expecting to see a sasquatch out there in the wiles
of America, you are far more likely to encounter other
life threatening creatures, and it's best to never assume that
you are safe. Like I said, if you're going into
the great outdoors just to catch a glimpse of sisquatch,
think again. These things stay hidden for a reason, and
if you do have an encounter, trust me, it'll happen
when you least expect it. My interactions with them have
happened over sixty four years, and every single time it
happened unexpectedly. For the times I did have an encounter, though,
it made my time out there worth it all. If
you're going out there, don't do it while drinking or
smoking dope, and you're better off going alone or split
up from the group. Silence is the key to achieving
success no matter what you're looking for. I don't think
it's wise to shoot one, even in self defense, and
I suggest that you don't try and remember sosquatch could
be more human, so think before you shoot. My uncle
was a mechanic for a big corporation, and during a
lunch break, one of his co workers brought up the
subject to bigfoot. Most everyone responded with typical comments like
now they're not real, or I'd have to see one
to believe it. But one guy, a full blooded Choktaw
Indian shared a story that challenged all their minds. He
and his cousins were deer hunting when they saw a bigfoot.
Two of them, covered in brown fur, ran off into
the timber, and the third, covered in blackford, didn't move
it all. It roared at them so loudly that they
felt it to their core, and then it charged. An
old tree stump was in its path, but this thing
ripped it from the ground mid sprint and hurled it
at them. At this point, they knew they were all
about to be ripped limb from limb, so they started
shooting at it with every round of buckshot they had
until they finally brought it down. Not knowing what to
do next, and knowing that no one would believe them,
they took photos, cut some of its hair, and put
it in a sandwich bag. Not long after, the Fed
showed up with a truck to haul it away. The
men stood there shocked and asked if it would be
on the evening news. The officer in charge responded, absolutely not,
This never happened and you were never here. One of
the cousins shot back, saying he couldn't be serious that
it was a big deal and the whole world should
hear about this. They finally had proof that Bigfoot exists,
but the officer just shook his head and said, no,
we don't do that. The cousins argued with him about
it until he got fed up and finally broke. He
told them that the big brown were herbivores, but the
black ones were carnivores. That means they eat any meat
they can find when they get hungry. Now understand what
I'm saying to you, The officer shouted, you are the meat.
If the public knew about them, every hiker, camper, mountain biker,
or anyone in the wilderness would be armed to the teeth,
shooting at anything that makes a sound and killing each
other in the process. The next day, during lunch, the
guy brought in the photos and the bag of black hair.
My uncle said the smell was indescribable. The guy and
his cousins never went public with the pictures. They kept
quiet about what happened, and they only tell the story
when people start claiming that Bigfoot is not real. Okay,
this podcast is not over. I'm going to drop one
or two short stories from the vault. Stories I've done
several years ago that I think you might enjoy. These
podcasts are a little bit shorter because I'm working on
Steve Lilly number twenty. I think it's a pretty good story.
It's going to be quite long. I'm just going for it.
I'm going for the deep dive into Steve Lily, so
I'm really paying attention to that. Plus, I've got a
little bit of work to do with my regular job,
so I want to keep these podcasts going. I want
to keep uploading, so I'm putting these shorter ones out
with some archived stories at the end. Hope you enjoy it.
I really appreciate you. Thanks. My name is Kenneth and
I live in an area called Arcla, tex It's where
the Arkansas, Louisiana, and Texas state lines meet. I grew
up in Texarkana back in the nineteen sixties, and my
family and I love to go camping in the river
bottoms of Little River, Arkansas in Little River County. I
reported this event several years ago to other reporting agencies
or organizations. I went dormant afterwards due to the ridicule
and other family members recanting from what we experienced this night.
So I'm the only one still holding on to the
actual events that took place in August of nineteen sixty
nine when we encountered a white bigfoot. I was twelve
years old when we had our first encounter. On a
Friday afternoon at Cottonwood Shoals. My family and I were
excited about going on a weekend camping trip. My brothers
and I got the family truck loaded with all our gear,
and when my father got home from work, there would
be no delay in getting to the woods. As we
were leaving, a family member who lives a couple of
houses down stepped out to the curb and she waved
us down. She was my aunt's mother in law, and
she asked us not to go camping at Cottonwood Shoals.
She said that her and her husband were there a
couple of weeks ago and saw a hairy man peering
at them from behind some brush while she was fishing,
and it scared the hell out of her. She said
she had run to get her husband, who was fishing,
and she told him what had happened. Well, he called
her a crazy old one. Oh man, what a mistake.
He called her a crazy old woman, and then he
took her home. My father told her that we would
keep a lookout for this monster, and that she you
shouldn't worry about us. I'll be honest. We were all
laughing as we drove away. We don't laugh anymore. I'm
about to tell you why. We arrived in time to
set up camp and have supper. My three older brothers
got their fishing gear and they went to get a
night in of catfishing. It was getting dark when my
mother and younger sister and two younger brothers crawled into
the tent. They were ready to turn in for the night.
My father enjoyed sitting by the campfire, drinking beer and
listening to country music on the radio. I wasn't ready
for bed, so I decided to take a short walk
down the road. The moon was bright enough so that
I could see without a flashlight, and I hadn't walked
far from the camp site, and the hare stood up
on the back of my neck. I felt a current
of wind whiz by me. Something had been thrown at me,
and I turned around. I didn't see anyone. For whatever reason,
the woman's story about seeing the hairy man came to mind,
so I ran straight back to camp. My father asked
what had me in a hurry, and I blew it off,
saying that I was just tired and ready for bed.
Once in the tent, I noticed our dog was acting weird.
He was alert and staring at the wall like it
knew something was out there. Well, I betted down and
we slept through an uneventful night. Saturday was the big
day for swimming and fishing and exploring the area. I
was down the road where my brothers had been catfishing
the night before and had had the place to myself.
Behind me, across the road were some pea gravel piles
placed there by the county. From that area, I heard
noises like weird bird sounds. I looked around and I
didn't see any birds. This went on for several minutes.
To this day, I've never heard noises like that before.
And I noticed my two younger brothers playing behind the piles,
and all I could see was the tops of one
of their heads. They both had cotton white hair then,
so it was easy to see it was them, even
though all I could see was the top of their heads. Okay,
I thought, it's just my brothers playing in the gravel piles.
As long as they stay over there and don't bother
me while I'm fishing, That'll be fine. Later in the morning,
I heard my mother calling us to come back to
camp for lunch. So I grabbed up my fishing pole
and I headed back. When I arrived at camp, my
brothers were there. The only way they could have beat
me there was if they'd had gone straight through the woods. Well,
I told them they needed to stick to the roads
because the woods were full of snakes and chiggers. They
looked at me like I was crazy. They went on
to say that they had not even left camp all morning.
Of course, I thought they were with me. I had
seen them playing close to where I had been fishing.
I let it go. We all had a fun day.
By nine point thirty that night, I was tired and
ready for bed. I crawled into the tent with the
others and I was drifting off when our dog started
acting weird again. We had left the dog outside to
sleep that night, and somehow, with his teeth, he had
opened the zipper door of the tent and squeezed inside.
He woke everyone up. The dog came over by me
and it was trembling like it was cold, but I
could see by the whites of his eyes that he
was scared. My mom told me to close the zipper
and let the dog stay in the tent again that night,
that dog crawled in so close to me, I think
he was trying to get under me. At some point
during the night, my mother woke me up. She was
getting up to go to the bathroom and a spot
behind the tent. A few minutes later, her scream startled
us fully awake. Well, I immediately stood to look out
the tent mesh window, and I saw my mother running
back to the tent with her drawers still down around
her knees. She kept screaming, something's out there. It's watching me,
it's watching me. She made it back to the tent
and was screaming the same thing over and over to
my father. Well, he finally got her quiet enough to
understand what she was even saying, and then he asked her,
what's watching you? By chance? I began panting the woods
and I saw a large figure run past our truck.
The truck rocked back and forth as it ran by.
This thing was huge. It really shook me up. And
then my mother began to describe this thing to my father.
She said it was a giant and it looked like
an ape. It was covering white hair, and it had
long arms. It was only a few feet from her
when she noticed it. That's when I told them that
I saw something run by the truck while I was
looking out the window. So all the men walked over
to look around in that direction. Beside the truck were
giant tracks, clearly visible in the dust. My father noticed
a dent in the rear fender that had not been
there before. When my mother had started screaming, she had
scared the creature as much as he scared her, and
it ran away. That was my guess, I guess, not
paying attention to what was in front of it, it
ran into the truck and then carried on with its escape.
That's what I thought, but that wasn't the case. Now.
My father was worried. I could see it in his demeanor.
Out of the truck, he pulled a shotgun and he
handed it to my brother to stand guard while we
packed up camp. We were leaving. This was one of
those times when it took no encouragement for any of
us to pack up camp. It was dark and hard
to see everything, but we started throwing things loosely into
the bed of the truck. We had that camp site
packed up in record time. And then one of my
brothers yelled, out, there it is. He raised the shotgun
and he fired into the darkness, and then my father
yelled out, it's circling the camp. Hurry up, we gotta go.
By this time I was terrified. I know the rest
of my family was too, and we couldn't get out
of there fast enough. Finally, with all of us in
the truck, my father turned the key in, it started,
and in a few minutes we were gone. We made
it home in the early morning hours, and we all
went straight to bed. It had been an exhausting night.
The next day, our aunt came over to ask why
we were home early. She already knew, but she wanted
to hear about it. We all sat in the living
room comparing notes on what everyone had seen. Apparently it
was the same creature. None of us laugh at bigfoot
stories now, we take them very seriously. Back in nineteen
seventy nine, when I was nine years old, we lived
in Angelina County in East Texas. It was about twenty
miles south of Luvekin, near the sam Rayburn Lake area.
Both of my grandparents lived there. They were divorced, but
lived about two miles from each other. They each lived
on a typical modest farm of twenty five to thirty
acres with lots of chickens, ducks, horses, and cows. One
smoldering summer night at my grandmother's farm, the adults were
engaged in their usual routine of cooking dinner before settling
in for a night of card playing. Meanwhile, I was
slipping outside with my brother who was eleven, who was eight,
and my dad's ten year old brother, our uncle, to
hang out at the edge of one of the pastures,
where the yard light on a pole made a bright
circle in the night. Beyond that halo, the world was
inky black. Within the light was the pasture gate, where
we liked to sit and use our sling shots to
play sort of a gigantic game of marbles by shooting
rocks out of the circle and into the night. We
were all sitting up on the gate, engrossed in our
game and cutting up and laughing as little boys will do,
when our attention was suddenly drawn in the direction of
the barn located one hundred yards to our left. We
silently stared and listened as something massive and heavy came
running through the pasture from that direction. We shot looks
at each other as we realized the speed at which
this thing was running. We knew it was on two legs,
and that brought another round of glances to one another.
Every thump, thump, thump, those pounding steps burned itself into
my mind as we sat waiting to see what this
thing could be. It was at the edge of the
light when it came to a complete stop, as if
it had just then noticed us sitting there. The brightness
ended so abruptly at the circle's edge that all we
could see were two tree trunk sized legs. From the
knees down, they were massive. We could tell they were
covered with brown hair that looked like long, fine brown wire.
It was swaying like the hair on a wig moving
in the wind. Then my uncle did something that surprised us.
All had a rock locked and loaded in a slingshot
and chose that moment to fire it right at the creature.
We knew it hit its mark by the thump it
made when it hit the animal's body, followed by a
plunk as it hit the ground at its feet. But
what happened next was the craziest thing I'd ever seen
in all my nine years of living. The creature picked
up the rock and threw it back at us, missing
my head by inches. Instantly, as if the devil himself
were chasing us, we sprang into action and sprinting for
the house, pushing at and tripping over each other as
we ran. It wasn't a matter of out running that
thing in the darkness. We were trying to outrun each other.
No one wanted to be the last man in line,
and there was no doubt in our minds that whichever
poor soul came in last would go down first. We
breathlessly burst through the door, screaming for our parents to
come outside and dispatch the monster in the pasture, but
they just laughed at us. They went back to their
card game, Certain we were making up the whole thing.
There was nothing left for us to do. We weren't
going back outside with an adult to get rid of
the beast. So we cleaned up and we went to bed,
but none of us slept that night, knowing there was
something out there. The next morning, my dad and my
stepfather weren't at the breakfast table. We asked my grandmother
where they were, and as soon as she told us
they were out in the pasture, we ran out the
front door to join them. We found them at the
far end, examining a piece of fence that had been
ripped up and completely demolished, as if something large had
run right through it. My step grandfather and dad were
baffled by the damage. All the animals were accounted for.
They couldn't imagine what had done this.