Speaker 1: I've been hiking, hunting, and fishing the New Hampshire Wilderness
Speaker 1: my entire life. It's a small state, but eighty three
Speaker 1: percent of it is covered in forest. There are no
Speaker 1: big cities here. The population of the ten largest city
Speaker 1: combined does not equal even a half a million people.
Speaker 1: Mostly it's miles and miles of woods with no signs
Speaker 1: of humans. In late spring of twenty and seventeen, two
Speaker 1: of my friends and I were driving a back road
Speaker 1: somewhere in Strafford County. We were using a spotlight to
Speaker 1: look for deer and other wildlife that inhabited the area.
Speaker 1: We were not illegally poaching the deer, We were just
Speaker 1: looking for them. By the way, if you even shine
Speaker 1: a light down here in Mississippi, you're going to jail.
Speaker 1: Whether you have a life with you or not. You
Speaker 1: can't spotlight down here. I don't know what the laws
Speaker 1: are of there. Nobody rides around the woods shining lights
Speaker 1: in fields and woods around here because you going to jail. Brother. Anyway,
Speaker 1: on with the story. At around eleven thirty PM, we
Speaker 1: came to a valley where we could get out and
Speaker 1: stretch our legs next to a swamp surrounded by young oaks, maples,
Speaker 1: beech trees, and pines. My friend Dan had to relieve
Speaker 1: himself and went over to the edge of the swamp
Speaker 1: out of sight. My other friend, Andrew and I were
Speaker 1: considering pranking Dan by driving off and leaving him in
Speaker 1: the dark for five minutes when we heard something rounding
Speaker 1: the other side of the swamp. It was clearly walking
Speaker 1: on two feet, and we thought it was Dan. Why
Speaker 1: the heck did you go out that far? We shouted,
Speaker 1: and the walking stop. I'm only over here, Dan answered,
Speaker 1: as he approached us from the opposite direction. I quickly
Speaker 1: grabbed the blot light and scanned the other side of
Speaker 1: the swamp at our one o'clock. The light reflected two
Speaker 1: auburn eyes that were almost completely concealed by cattail, reeds
Speaker 1: and saplings. We figured it was some kind of predator,
Speaker 1: but we weren't sure. Well the heck is that, Andrew asked.
Speaker 1: The words had barely left his mouth when the thing
Speaker 1: stood up. Our view of the thing was still mostly
Speaker 1: blocked by the trees and leaves, but now we could
Speaker 1: see a silhouette of a large upright figure. The eyes
Speaker 1: were still shining at us through the leaves, though much
Speaker 1: higher up. At this point, the only clearly visible part
Speaker 1: of it were two black tree trunk sized legs, and
Speaker 1: then it took a step back and it melted into
Speaker 1: the trees. For the next ten to fifteen seconds, we
Speaker 1: could hear it crashing and stomping deeper into the forest
Speaker 1: at what seemed like an almost supernatural speed, and then
Speaker 1: the sound was gone. We all looked at each other
Speaker 1: in amazed silence. What did we just see? I ask everyone.
Speaker 1: It definitely wasn't a bear. The sheer size and speed
Speaker 1: at which it moved eliminated the possibility of it being
Speaker 1: a human. We debated the possibilities during the car ride home,
Speaker 1: but we never came to any logical conclusion as to
Speaker 1: what it might be. Two months later, a coworker who
Speaker 1: lives near that spot told me that her husband had
Speaker 1: seen a bigfoot cross the road on Christmas Eve two
Speaker 1: years before. It was less than a mile from where
Speaker 1: my friends and I had seen this creature. Since then,
Speaker 1: I have accepted that we saw bigfoot that night. Sadly,
Speaker 1: Andrew died in a car accident in twenty eighteen, but
Speaker 1: the subject has now become a hobby for me and
Speaker 1: my friend Dan. We now spend a great deal of
Speaker 1: time looking out for the elusive creature. I have one
Speaker 1: other encounter, along with some other occurrences I would love
Speaker 1: to share. Since our state doesn't have any established research
Speaker 1: organizations on the subject, it doesn't matter to me if
Speaker 1: you ever used this story on your channel. It's not
Speaker 1: a Bigfoot story. It's just something I was thinking about
Speaker 1: and I felt like talking kind of straightened it out
Speaker 1: in my own mind, I suppose, so I decided to
Speaker 1: write it down. By all accounts, my grandfather was not
Speaker 1: a very nice man. He was a strict disciplinarian, a
Speaker 1: man who beat his wife and kids. By today's standards,
Speaker 1: he'd be a criminal. But I think maybe he was
Speaker 1: a victim of his times. Born somewhere around eighteen eighty,
Speaker 1: he was of a time when it was the job
Speaker 1: of the man to keep his house in order. A
Speaker 1: man who failed to keep his house in order could
Speaker 1: not be the deacon of a church, and was looked
Speaker 1: upon as week. Any failings in his family would have
Speaker 1: been his fail as a man. Now I'm not making
Speaker 1: excuses for him. God knows I have my own reasons
Speaker 1: to question his actions, and I try not to view
Speaker 1: him too harshly. My grandfather died when I was two.
Speaker 1: I was the only grandchild that he lived to see,
Speaker 1: and by all accounts, in my one memory of him,
Speaker 1: he loved me very much and he was very proud
Speaker 1: of me, even though at the time my greatest achievement
Speaker 1: was in having been born. Mama told me that he
Speaker 1: died lying on the sofa in the living room of
Speaker 1: the house he built and owned. He owned and built
Speaker 1: another home for my uncle and his wife just behind us.
Speaker 1: Now that's no small feet for a black man born
Speaker 1: only sixteen years after slavery. On the day he died,
Speaker 1: the corner was playing golf and no one could move
Speaker 1: the body until the corner pronounced him dead. And this
Speaker 1: house was out in the country, and the corner didn't
Speaker 1: see any and to interrupt his golf game, after all,
Speaker 1: Granddaddy wasn't going anywhere. And he laid there for hours,
Speaker 1: and finally the corner showed up and verified the obvious,
Speaker 1: and the funeral home was called. And while they waited
Speaker 1: for the hers, Grandpa sat up. Everybody in the house
Speaker 1: saw it. He stood up, and he walked over to
Speaker 1: his rocking chair. He sat down in it. And started rocking,
Speaker 1: and after a few minutes of rocking, the chair slowed
Speaker 1: to a stop. A little while later, the funeral home
Speaker 1: picked him up from that chair, and when they got there,
Speaker 1: everybody told them what had happened, and the director nodded,
Speaker 1: and he says, these things can happen sometimes. That should
Speaker 1: have marked the end of my time with my grandfather,
Speaker 1: but that was not the case. When I was three
Speaker 1: or four, I was playing in the dirt in the
Speaker 1: front yard when someone blew in my ear. First, I
Speaker 1: was engrossed in my game and I didn't paying much mine.
Speaker 1: As it happened again and again. I tried to absently
Speaker 1: to brush it away, and finally I stopped playing entirely,
Speaker 1: and I looked around. It now had my full attention.
Speaker 1: I knew this wasn't the wind. For one thing, the
Speaker 1: air was still in For another, the wind doesn't blow
Speaker 1: directly into your ear. There was no one there. I
Speaker 1: stood up and I ran in the house and I
Speaker 1: told my grandmother that someone was blowing in my ear,
Speaker 1: but nobody was there. Oh, that's just your grandfather, She said,
Speaker 1: don't worry, he won't hurt you. Well. I was shocked,
Speaker 1: and I tried to process that information. I knew my
Speaker 1: granddaddy was dead and he didn't have any business blowing
Speaker 1: in my ear, But mother acted as if it was normal,
Speaker 1: and I was used to taking my cue from her,
Speaker 1: and I decided to let it go. But it troubled me,
Speaker 1: and I didn't go back outside all day. I didn't
Speaker 1: know then that my grandmother was both right and wrong.
Speaker 1: It wouldn't hurt me, but he would most definitely try.
Speaker 1: In fact, he would try to kill me. For the
Speaker 1: most part, the things that happened during my years of
Speaker 1: being shadowed by my grandpa's ghost were innocuous. Once, when
Speaker 1: I was turning flips on the sofa, I heard a
Speaker 1: voice that sounded just like my uncle, my grandfather's brother,
Speaker 1: say stop that right now. I looked over and no
Speaker 1: one was there. There wasn't even a car in the yard.
Speaker 1: I found my grandmother in the back of the house
Speaker 1: hanging out the wash, and I stayed outside with her.
Speaker 1: Another time, it got into my head to try to
Speaker 1: see my face in the bottom of the well. I
Speaker 1: was about six at the time, and I noticed that
Speaker 1: I could see a round circle of blue sky in
Speaker 1: the dark depths of the well. I figured if I
Speaker 1: could lean over far enough I could see my face
Speaker 1: in the middle of that Sir. Now, I knew I
Speaker 1: might fall, and I knew I couldn't swim. So I
Speaker 1: let the bucket down into the water, believing that I
Speaker 1: could grab the rope and scream until my grandmother came
Speaker 1: and found me. But it never occurred to me that
Speaker 1: I could hit my head on the way down, or
Speaker 1: that the rope may come loose when I grabbed it.
Speaker 1: I scrambled my way up the side of the well
Speaker 1: and I leaned over, and I couldn't see my face.
Speaker 1: I needed to get higher, and I pushed and scraped
Speaker 1: and pulled my way up the stone sides, and I
Speaker 1: still wasn't high enough. I took a deep breath and
Speaker 1: I tried again. This time I heard a loud, stern
Speaker 1: voice shout, get down. I let go of the well
Speaker 1: and I dropped back to the ground, fully expecting to
Speaker 1: get a good chewing out from my uncle, But there
Speaker 1: was nobody. I didn't learn until a few months ago
Speaker 1: that my baby brother had also heard the same voice,
Speaker 1: and he too thought it was our uncle. The last
Speaker 1: thing to happen before my grandfather's force departure happened in
Speaker 1: front of my friends, Brenda and Benny, who lived up
Speaker 1: the hill. My mother was friends with their mother, and
Speaker 1: one day she walked up to the hill to visit,
Speaker 1: and I went with her. We were playing on the
Speaker 1: swing set in their yard while our mothers talked outside.
Speaker 1: They were both older than me, and they could swing
Speaker 1: higher than me, and I was desperate to get as
Speaker 1: high as they did. But no matter how hard I tried,
Speaker 1: I just couldn't do it. And then suddenly my swing
Speaker 1: froze in mid air. The chain attached to the seat
Speaker 1: was outstretched and taut. Brenda and Bennie jumped off their
Speaker 1: swings and stared up at me, and I looked down
Speaker 1: at them, and I needed a lighter or something, and
Speaker 1: my swing went four feet higher, and I started to
Speaker 1: kick and scream, and my swing came loose from whatever
Speaker 1: force held it, and I swooped backwards through the air.
Speaker 1: More than anything in the world, I did not want
Speaker 1: that swing to go up again, and I dug my
Speaker 1: feet in the dirt to stop it, while my friends watched,
Speaker 1: wide eyed and frozen. And when I managed to get off,
Speaker 1: we all stood there, looking at the swing, in each
Speaker 1: other and in the way of children who have just
Speaker 1: experienced something they know adults will not believe. We went
Speaker 1: and played somewhere else. We never got back on that swing,
Speaker 1: not that day, not ever, And that brings me to
Speaker 1: the culmination of these events. My grandfather's house was in
Speaker 1: a small country town where there wasn't much by the
Speaker 1: way of employment. A granddaddy had been a farmer, an
Speaker 1: occupation my father had no interest in continuing, so Daddy
Speaker 1: and Mama both worked in the larger town about an
Speaker 1: hour away, and sometimes they stayed there, and sometimes they
Speaker 1: came home, and on this night they were home. But
Speaker 1: I was used to my grandmother taking care of me,
Speaker 1: so when I woke up in pain that night, I
Speaker 1: tried to wake her. There were sharp pains in my stomach,
Speaker 1: as if my intestines were being pulled out of my body.
Speaker 1: I shook my grandmother and I called her, but I
Speaker 1: couldn't wake her, and this was unusual because Grandmother was
Speaker 1: a very light sleeper. And finally I gave up and
Speaker 1: got out of bed and went to the door of
Speaker 1: the room where my parents were sleeping. And I was
Speaker 1: crying when I opened the door, and Mama heard me
Speaker 1: immediately what's wrong, she asked, Sleepy, I told her my
Speaker 1: stomach hurts, and I was crying from the ache and
Speaker 1: tears were streaming down my face. Mama threw back the
Speaker 1: covers and got out of bed. They went to the
Speaker 1: bathroom and pulled a peptipismo from the medicine cabinet, and
Speaker 1: we went to the kitchen for a spoon and sat
Speaker 1: down on the sofa in the living room, and she
Speaker 1: gave me a dose from the bottle, and I fell
Speaker 1: asleep with my head in her lap. I don't know
Speaker 1: how long I slept, but she woke me up and
Speaker 1: sent me off to bed, saying, you'll feel better, now,
Speaker 1: go get some rest. I did feel better, but not
Speaker 1: for long. As soon as I climbed into bed, the
Speaker 1: horrible jerking and pulling pain started again. I felt as
Speaker 1: if I was dying, and I sat up in bed crying,
Speaker 1: and I saw Mother struggle to open her eyes, but
Speaker 1: she fell back to sleep. It was the only time
Speaker 1: in my life that I felt she didn't really care
Speaker 1: about me, but I knew that wasn't true, so I
Speaker 1: thought she must really be tired. I didn't want to
Speaker 1: go back to Mama's room, but I didn't have a choice.
Speaker 1: This happened a time when television played the Star Spangled
Speaker 1: Banner when it went off at night, and I never
Speaker 1: thought of sitting up in the dark alone. Now opened
Speaker 1: the bedroom door, hoping that Mama wouldn't get impatient with me.
Speaker 1: It still hurts, I said again. Mama threw back the covers,
Speaker 1: and I heard Daddy Mama, what's wrong with her? She says,
Speaker 1: she's sick. Mama answered. This time Daddy got up and
Speaker 1: came with us. We were all in the living room
Speaker 1: and I was sniffling on the sofa with Mama rubbing
Speaker 1: my stomach. Daddy was sitting in a chair, skimming through
Speaker 1: a magazine and talking to Mama, And after a while
Speaker 1: I went to sleep, listening to the soft sound of
Speaker 1: their voices as they whispered back and forth. I was
Speaker 1: later shaken awake by Mama, who was telling me to
Speaker 1: go back to bed, and I looked around and I
Speaker 1: saw that Daddy was gone. I didn't want to go
Speaker 1: back to bed. Something was happening in that bed, and
Speaker 1: every time I got into bed, those horrible pains would start.
Speaker 1: I walked slowly down the hallway to my grandmother's room
Speaker 1: as soon as I was back in the bed, the
Speaker 1: torture and my stomach began again. I held it, curling
Speaker 1: into a ball and willing it to stop, willing myself
Speaker 1: to be stronger so that I could endure it. That
Speaker 1: is the first time I heard the voice. It was
Speaker 1: a man's voice, and it seemed to be speaking to
Speaker 1: me telepathically. I had no idea at the time what
Speaker 1: telepathy was, but someone was talking to me inside my head. Again,
Speaker 1: I was six or seven years old. I didn't question that.
Speaker 1: It's the same way we didn't question it when that
Speaker 1: swing stopped in mid air and the voice told me
Speaker 1: that my grandfather wanted to take me with him. You
Speaker 1: have to stay awake, it said. I spoke back to
Speaker 1: it the same way it spoke to me, with a thought.
Speaker 1: But I have to sleep, I said. I can't stay
Speaker 1: awake forever, and he'll get me. He only has tonight,
Speaker 1: the voice answered, If you'll live till the morning, you'll
Speaker 1: live well. I wanted to ask why he had any
Speaker 1: time at all, but Mama had taught us about messing
Speaker 1: in grown folks business, and this seemed to be grown
Speaker 1: folks business. If ever, there was any besides the voice,
Speaker 1: could read my mind too. It knew the question I
Speaker 1: wanted to ask, and it had not answered, and I
Speaker 1: decided to leave well enough alone. Crying loudly now from
Speaker 1: the pain in my stomach, I struggled out of bed.
Speaker 1: This time. Mama met me at the door to her room,
Speaker 1: Margaret in She said, why is it that you only
Speaker 1: seem to be sick when you go back to bed,
Speaker 1: As long as you're in the living room, you seem fine.
Speaker 1: I wanted to ask her, well, if you know that,
Speaker 1: why do you keep sending me back to bed? But
Speaker 1: I knew better than to say that. She might consider
Speaker 1: it back talking and send me to bed, saying and
Speaker 1: you better not get up again, which would probably be
Speaker 1: the end of me. So I stood there silently, staring
Speaker 1: up at her while she looked down into my tears
Speaker 1: stained face, and finally she sighed and took me back
Speaker 1: into the living room again. I went to sleep. I
Speaker 1: don't know how long we were there, but she woke
Speaker 1: me up, saying, it's almost day. Go back to bed now.
Speaker 1: I got up, and as we walked through the still
Speaker 1: dark house, I looked toward the kitchen window, which faced east.
Speaker 1: I could just make out a pencil edge of daylight
Speaker 1: on the horizon. The sun was coming up. Wouldn't be
Speaker 1: much longer. The voice had told me that he had
Speaker 1: till morning. So I climbed back in bed next to
Speaker 1: my grandmother, and immediately the pain in my stomach began
Speaker 1: even harder than before, and I buried my face in
Speaker 1: my pillow and I cried while I held my stomach,
Speaker 1: and I tried not to go back to my parents' room.
Speaker 1: The sun was coming up fast now, and soon the
Speaker 1: pain began to go away, And as it drifted away,
Speaker 1: I drifted off to sleep. I never saw or heard
Speaker 1: from my grandfather after that. In later years, I read
Speaker 1: something in the Bible that said, when the silver cord
Speaker 1: is loosed, the connection between life and after life. I
Speaker 1: also heard someone speaking on an astral projection talk about
Speaker 1: silver chords connecting the spirit body to the physical body,
Speaker 1: and when it comes loose, that's the end of life
Speaker 1: in this world. He said that it seemed to be
Speaker 1: around the navel or in the stomach area. I wonder
Speaker 1: about that and that horrible pulling. But more than that,
Speaker 1: I wondered why my grandfather would try to kill me.
Speaker 1: He could have just let me fall into the well
Speaker 1: years before. I've come to the conclusion that he wanted
Speaker 1: to take me because he loved me and he wanted
Speaker 1: me to be with him. I don't think he really
Speaker 1: believed Mom and Daddy would take care of me. He
Speaker 1: did know my grandmother would, which is why I think
Speaker 1: she wasn't allowed to wake up that night. Granddaddy was
Speaker 1: certain the family would fall apart without him, and that's
Speaker 1: why he fought so hard to live, and that's why
Speaker 1: his spirit reanimated his dead body. But he couldn't make
Speaker 1: it live. He could only make it move in a way.
Speaker 1: He was right. My uncle and his wife divorced shortly
Speaker 1: after his death, and my parents divorced five years later.
Speaker 1: If he had lived, could he have stopped all that?
Speaker 1: I don't think so. He may have delayed it, but
Speaker 1: it would have happened anyway. That was the whole point.
Speaker 1: That was what the owner of that voice I heard
Speaker 1: was trying to teach him. People are in charge of
Speaker 1: their own destinies. He could even control a seven year
Speaker 1: old girl. And as for that voice, I still hear
Speaker 1: it sometimes. When I do, I always listen