Speaker 1: I grew up really poor. I never knew my father,
Speaker 1: and my mother was abusive. I think life turned her
Speaker 1: that way and she took her frustration out on me.
Speaker 1: Because of the way things were, I tried to spend
Speaker 1: as much time as I could away from home. Things
Speaker 1: were clearly different in the seventies for kids like me.
Speaker 1: The bullying and the obvious signs of abuse were often
Speaker 1: overlooked or ignored by teachers and grown ups. My school
Speaker 1: had what they called Eco Week, where they would take
Speaker 1: us up to cabins in the mountains. Well I loved
Speaker 1: Echo Week. Not knowing my father meant that I never
Speaker 1: went on fishing trips or camping trips, and unlike other boys,
Speaker 1: I had no one to show me how to bait
Speaker 1: a hook. I never had the chance to relive the
Speaker 1: hunting stories that fathers passed down to their sons. We
Speaker 1: all piled into the school buses. The popular kids sat
Speaker 1: anywhere they wanted. I scrambled to find a seat. Getting
Speaker 1: to the camp area the first time was completely overwhelming.
Speaker 1: I had never been to anything like this. We were
Speaker 1: assigned to a cabin, each with four bunk beds. The
Speaker 1: windows were small, which allowed light to stream into the cabin,
Speaker 1: but high enough to keep anyone from spying on you
Speaker 1: from the outside. We each chose a bed and we
Speaker 1: laid out our sleeping bags. My bunk mate was a
Speaker 1: heavy set boy with glasses named Eric. He was quiet
Speaker 1: and he was shy, and he became an immediate target
Speaker 1: for the older bullies in our group. I was big
Speaker 1: for my age, and I had learned a long time
Speaker 1: ago how to put up a front thanks to the
Speaker 1: frequent beatings from my mother. The bullies were fooled by
Speaker 1: my tough demeanor and generally left me alone. After a
Speaker 1: night sitting around the campfire roasting sh'mores, the counselors ordered
Speaker 1: us back to our rooms for the night. I helped
Speaker 1: put the supplies away and douse the fire, and in
Speaker 1: lieu of not having a healthy role model in my life,
Speaker 1: I craved the attention of the adult counselors, who probably
Speaker 1: had no idea how important their encouragement was to a
Speaker 1: lonely kid like me. I was starved for affection and
Speaker 1: severely lacking when it came to my own self esteem.
Speaker 1: I was the last one back to the cabin. The
Speaker 1: lights were off, but I heard whispers and I saw
Speaker 1: a glare of flashlights through the windows. I quietly opened
Speaker 1: the door to my disgust. Our roommates had Eric surrounded.
Speaker 1: His pajamas were around his ankles, and he was clutching
Speaker 1: the waistban of his tattered shorts. Whatever they had been
Speaker 1: planning for my poor, humiliated bunk mate, my arrival had
Speaker 1: preempted it. I hit the lights of the cabin and
Speaker 1: stared down Eric's abusers. Alerted by the commotions, several counselors intervened.
Speaker 1: They took note of the situation and promptly moved Eric's
Speaker 1: tormentors to different cabins For the remainder of our stay.
Speaker 1: Eric and I were the sole occupants of our own cabin.
Speaker 1: We laid in our bunks one night and Eric opened
Speaker 1: up to me about his own horrible childhood. We had
Speaker 1: both been believed and victimized, but what had happened to
Speaker 1: him was unspeakable, and whether out of pity or empathy,
Speaker 1: we became buddies. They'll pay for that, said Eric to
Speaker 1: me one night. My friends will take care of them, who,
Speaker 1: I muttered, You haven't seen my friends. They look into
Speaker 1: the windows each night, they're watching over us. Well. I
Speaker 1: drifted off to sleep. Certain Eric's remarks were the revenge
Speaker 1: fantasies of a picked on kid. Well, during the last
Speaker 1: night of our stay, something drew us all from our cabins.
Speaker 1: Our ex roommates had been discovered sitting in the dirt
Speaker 1: near the camp restrooms. They were babbling incoherently, oblivious to
Speaker 1: the gawkers staring and pointing at them. The counselors led
Speaker 1: them away. Eric and I returned to our room and
Speaker 1: tried to get some sleep before the journey home. In
Speaker 1: a few hours, we sat together on the school bus,
Speaker 1: but Eric and I hardly said a word to each other.
Speaker 1: Maybe it was like a sleep. We were halfway home
Speaker 1: before I noticed our former roommates weren't on the bus
Speaker 1: with us. Well. I heard later that their parents had
Speaker 1: been summoned to the camp in the middle of the
Speaker 1: night to take them home. One day, Eric took a
Speaker 1: walk out into the woods, and he never came back.
Speaker 1: There were rumors he had died, or that he had
Speaker 1: run away from his abusive household. I like to think
Speaker 1: that somewhere out there he simply found a nicer set
Speaker 1: of friends. The account you read of the UFO account
Speaker 1: in Oklahoma from rusty is one hundred percent true. I
Speaker 1: was a police officer at the time. I'd rather not
Speaker 1: say what department that night I was on duty, but
Speaker 1: I was planning on using a few hours of comp time.
Speaker 1: As I was headed in, a traffic officer called the
Speaker 1: police department advising that it appeared that a jet was
Speaker 1: in trouble and to please contact the base. We had
Speaker 1: previously served as support after one of the training jets
Speaker 1: had crashed, so this was not an unusual request. Everyone
Speaker 1: was immediately on full alert waiting for confirmation, and a
Speaker 1: few minutes passed and I headed toward another area for
Speaker 1: better observation, and meanwhile, the public had lit up the
Speaker 1: phone lines to report the light that they were seeing.
Speaker 1: We watched this ball of light as it descended diagonally
Speaker 1: toward our city, and suddenly he had appeared to stop
Speaker 1: in midfall, and dispatch advised east side officers to go
Speaker 1: to a different radio channel for further instructions. After switching
Speaker 1: to a different channel, we were advised to stand by
Speaker 1: and we watched the light stop and remain stationary before
Speaker 1: dispatch ordered me to the station to help with the
Speaker 1: phone traffic. A few minutes later, when I arrived at
Speaker 1: the police station. I was informed by my sergeant that
Speaker 1: we were on a full alert from the base, and
Speaker 1: a minute later, the infamous red telephone rang. Now this
Speaker 1: phone had never rung before. Everyone always said that it
Speaker 1: was a hotline to Washington, DC, and that night we
Speaker 1: found out that that was true. My sergeant had a
Speaker 1: deer in the headlights look on his face as he
Speaker 1: stared at that phone. The other sergeant answered it and
Speaker 1: immediately jumped out of his chair instead of attention. I know
Speaker 1: that's weird and it's almost comical. But after several yes, sirs,
Speaker 1: he hung up and looked at us and he said
Speaker 1: it's him. He said that until we know the situation,
Speaker 1: the base is in charge. He also said that we
Speaker 1: were not to speak about this incident. It was then
Speaker 1: that the base contacted the police station, advising us that
Speaker 1: they had fully armed jets in the air and we
Speaker 1: were advised that they were in pursuit of this object.
Speaker 1: And for the next hour, that craft was between Kansas
Speaker 1: City and Houston airspace and it was going back and forth.
Speaker 1: No aircraft on Earth could have covered the distance between
Speaker 1: Kansas City and Houston in six minutes flat. It was
Speaker 1: like a game or something. It would stop until the
Speaker 1: jets got closed, and then it would take off again.
Speaker 1: Radar documented every bit of this. The lights of the
Speaker 1: jets looked like ping pong balls compared to the beach
Speaker 1: ball sized light of this object. After the incident was called,
Speaker 1: everyone was told to stand down. The military in some
Speaker 1: odd ball suits showed up for depbriefing. Well. I played
Speaker 1: it off as if I didn't see anything. Being a
Speaker 1: female back then was reason enough for the suits to
Speaker 1: ignore me. I was told later that the military instructions
Speaker 1: were don't acknowledge anything and keep it out of the press.
Speaker 1: From what I saw, it appeared that over half of
Speaker 1: that craft was in shadow. I honestly couldn't begin to
Speaker 1: estimate the size. The last time I saw it, it
Speaker 1: went straight up and it disappeared in the blink of
Speaker 1: an eye. Whatever it was, it wasn't from our world.
Speaker 1: My name is Wayne, and this is about an encounter
Speaker 1: with a bigfoot. My father and I were on a
Speaker 1: hunting trip in the foothills of North Carolina. We had
Speaker 1: set out corn debate deer in the area the week before.
Speaker 1: We decided to camp out in the area and go hunting.
Speaker 1: The following morning. At four o'clock in the morning, I
Speaker 1: was awoken by the sound of some rustling around of
Speaker 1: some leaves and the snapping of twigs on the ground,
Speaker 1: and as if the tent just enough to look outside
Speaker 1: to see what it was. Fifty feet away I saw
Speaker 1: something that at first looked like a bear eating a deer.
Speaker 1: The deer was still moving or twitching, as if it
Speaker 1: had just been killed. Within a second, a horrible odor
Speaker 1: hit me, smelling like something in decay or rotting. It
Speaker 1: was terrible. It must have heard me move because it
Speaker 1: quickly stood up on two feet. It wasn't a bear,
Speaker 1: and I realized what I was seeing. I fell back
Speaker 1: into the tent lifted my rifle in the direction of
Speaker 1: the beast. Then I heard heavy footfalls of this thing
Speaker 1: charging the tent, and within a second we were both
Speaker 1: lifted into the air like we were in a sack.
Speaker 1: The big foot I had picked the tent up and
Speaker 1: was dragging us along the ground. I worked the rifle
Speaker 1: around and got off a few shots. This made the
Speaker 1: creature release its grip on the tent and we fell
Speaker 1: to the ground through the holes. I shot through the
Speaker 1: tent fabric. I saw a blinding white light for just
Speaker 1: a second, and then everything went deathly quiet. My father
Speaker 1: breathing was all I could hear. My father asked in
Speaker 1: a panic state, what was going on, but it took
Speaker 1: me a while to compose myself to telling what had happened.
Speaker 1: We both got out of the tent with our firearms,
Speaker 1: but the creature was gone. The only thing that remained
Speaker 1: was the mutilated deer. We packed our gear and we
Speaker 1: left it daylight, and on our way out, thinking the
Speaker 1: event was over, we saw a line of black SUVs
Speaker 1: parked along the road. A couple of men stepped out
Speaker 1: and waved us down and we stopped. They came to
Speaker 1: the window and asked several questions about why we were there,
Speaker 1: and then they asked if we had seen anything unusual
Speaker 1: while camping. Well, I've heard and read about these things,
Speaker 1: and I kept my mouth shut. I told the man
Speaker 1: we hadn't seen anything. Apparently he believed my life and
Speaker 1: we drove home. I've never shared this story with the public,
Speaker 1: but I think it's now as the right time, seeing
Speaker 1: more and more people are coming forward and deciding to
Speaker 1: share their experiences. Well, that's a short compact, scary, terrifying, story.
Speaker 1: Holy crap. I mean, he sees a bigfoot. It comes over,
Speaker 1: picks the tent up, dragon, where's it taking you? Where
Speaker 1: was it dragging you to in the tent? And then
Speaker 1: you got off a couple of shots. Thank god you
Speaker 1: had a firearm. It lets you go. And then there's
Speaker 1: this white light which brings in what I don't know.
Speaker 1: I don't know what that means, but it leads me
Speaker 1: to believe like this thing was I don't know, interdimensional. Whoop,
Speaker 1: this bright light happened and it disappears. Man, what a
Speaker 1: scary story. I really appreciate you sending it. Wayne. That's
Speaker 1: a good one. That's a real good one. Thank you. Man.
Speaker 1: I was born in nineteen sixty seven, the year that
Speaker 1: Roger Patterson shot the famous Bigfoot film. I was a
Speaker 1: suburban ten year old living in a medium sized Midwestern
Speaker 1: town with no knowledge of the film when my family
Speaker 1: moved to the country. The years spent on our land
Speaker 1: in the adjacent two thousand acre wildlife refuge gave me
Speaker 1: a great appreciation for nature. I know that if you
Speaker 1: sit quiet enough for long enough and listen closely to
Speaker 1: the natural world, it will always amaze you. The years
Speaker 1: following my childhood were spent outdoors as much as possible.
Speaker 1: I've hiked and swam, and climbed and kayaked bikes, be
Speaker 1: lunked and backcountry camped on five continents. The world's deserts
Speaker 1: and rainforests and too many out and range is to
Speaker 1: mention have been my playground. It taught me two things.
Speaker 1: Don't look at the sky full of stars and tell
Speaker 1: yourself there is no other life in the universe. And
Speaker 1: don't look at a planet full of unexplored places and
Speaker 1: say that things like Bigfoot can't exist. Although I would
Speaker 1: never have denied their existence, it didn't mean that I
Speaker 1: expected to see one. The topic has always interested me.
Speaker 1: Movies and books and articles and web sites and the
Speaker 1: like have always drawn me in, But to see one
Speaker 1: never thought about that. My girlfriend Carrie didn't have the
Speaker 1: advantage of a lifetime in the wild. Hers was a
Speaker 1: much more conventional story. She graduated early from high school
Speaker 1: and zoomed through college and got married and had three
Speaker 1: kids and explored nothing. Three years ago when we met,
Speaker 1: I opened those doors for her and discovered that she
Speaker 1: had a natural inclination for the wilderness. It paved the
Speaker 1: way for a lot of wonderful adventures together. Even while
Speaker 1: we were climbing mountains in the dark to see the
Speaker 1: sunrise or swimming in the lagoons of extinct volcanoes, Carrie
Speaker 1: never looked at the sky and thought the same things
Speaker 1: that I did. She only giggled at the prospect of Bigfoot,
Speaker 1: and once she even suggested that I exercise a little
Speaker 1: caution about that topic when speaking in certain circles, saying
Speaker 1: we wouldn't want others to think you're as crazy as
Speaker 1: I know you are. The irony of that statement would
Speaker 1: come back to haunt her. The Pacific Northwest may not
Speaker 1: house the largest forests on Earth, but it certainly does
Speaker 1: not fail to impress. It's been a favorite place of
Speaker 1: mind for a long time. The Redwoods are unparalleled, so
Speaker 1: it was inevitable that Carrie and I would eventually hike there.
Speaker 1: We took six days off from our responsibilit put backpacks
Speaker 1: on our shoulders, and got on a plane. The first
Speaker 1: day was spent gathering a couple of items that aren't
Speaker 1: allowed on airplanes. I learned a long time ago to
Speaker 1: pack light and never check a bag. There's nothing worse
Speaker 1: than arriving at base camp five days before your climbing
Speaker 1: gear does. On bigger trips, we may ship supplies ahead,
Speaker 1: but on a little adventures it is easier to buy
Speaker 1: a folding knife and one fuel sell for your camp
Speaker 1: burner after arrival. In addition to this, we grabbed some
Speaker 1: fruit and smoked meat and fish, and a few other
Speaker 1: items to keep us going over the next few days.
Speaker 1: After a good night's sleep, we ventured out for the
Speaker 1: first day. The unseasonably warm weather carried hints of smoke
Speaker 1: from the fires burning to the north. The smell was constant,
Speaker 1: but it wasn't overbearing. The sky was a surreal shade
Speaker 1: of orange draped over intermittent fogs and a constant smoky
Speaker 1: haze that left us feeling like we had stepped onto
Speaker 1: a movie set. It was unlike anything we had ever seen.
Speaker 1: We hiked in northern California for four days, a total
Speaker 1: of forty two miles, with only rare encounters with other hikers.
Speaker 1: Most visitors to our national parks and wild places rarely
Speaker 1: go beyond half a mile into the woods. Safer for
Speaker 1: them and better for me, was my opinion. On our
Speaker 1: fifth and final day out, we decided to take the
Speaker 1: trail that I had been on twice before. It's eight
Speaker 1: miles of not too difficult trail that ends in a
Speaker 1: nice mile stretch along the Pacific coast. We started early
Speaker 1: in conditions that hadn't changed in days. It was smoky
Speaker 1: and warm, and it was orange. Having done well with
Speaker 1: our rations, we nibbled periodically on whatever was left, knowing
Speaker 1: that our next meal would likely be in an airport restaurant.
Speaker 1: Several miles in, at what was roughly the half way point,
Speaker 1: we came across two bull elk. That's not uncommon to
Speaker 1: see Roosevelt elk on many of these trails, and as
Speaker 1: long as you stay aware and give them adequate space,
Speaker 1: it usually works out. These elk had decided to bed
Speaker 1: down twenty yards from each other, directly in the middle
Speaker 1: of the footpath. We held up behind a ten foot
Speaker 1: diameter redwood that was about the same distance from the elk.
Speaker 1: Milling around for a bit, we talked, and we made
Speaker 1: enough noise that the boys definitely knew we were there.
Speaker 1: They didn't pay us any attention, though, they were more
Speaker 1: interested in soaking up any light that made it through
Speaker 1: the hazy canopy above. Because there didn't seem to be
Speaker 1: any immediate danger we waited and watched them a bit,
Speaker 1: and we contemplated an alternate route around them. Four years earlier,
Speaker 1: I had come across some females and yearlings while on
Speaker 1: this trail, and that ended with me and my hiking
Speaker 1: partner sitting ten feet up in a tree and holding
Speaker 1: on for dear life while a bull smacked the trunk
Speaker 1: below us for an hour. He was definitely making a
Speaker 1: statement that I didn't care to have these two bulls repeat.
Speaker 1: Changing course in the redwoods isn't as easy as one
Speaker 1: might think. Often if you leave the trail is to
Speaker 1: go straight up or straight down, and you simply don't
Speaker 1: step over down redwoods unless you're Paul Bunyon. And worse,
Speaker 1: sometimes it's fifteen feet up and then fifteen feet back
Speaker 1: down through a heavy voliage that includes ferns as big
Speaker 1: as cars. And I've walked to within ten feet avelt
Speaker 1: more than on one occasion. Before they reveal themselves. Everything
Speaker 1: is that big out there. I decided to try and
Speaker 1: make the bulls uncomfortable by getting down on one knee
Speaker 1: and moving closer. I had moved in several yards and
Speaker 1: they were now looking right at me. But discomfort wasn't
Speaker 1: the expression on their faces. It wasn't working, so I
Speaker 1: began to shuffle back a few feet. When they simultaneously
Speaker 1: turned ninety degrees and abruptly stood up. I no longer
Speaker 1: had their attention. Carrie stepped forward and put her hand
Speaker 1: on my shoulder, and as the elk leaped off the
Speaker 1: path and disappeared into the forest, crashing and breaking branches
Speaker 1: as they ran, I turned and looked at her, and
Speaker 1: at that moment, a strong smell wafted it in and
Speaker 1: overpowered the smell of smoke. It was curiously familiar, but
Speaker 1: everything was happening so quickly that I didn't process it.
Speaker 1: Carrie's grip on my shoulder got suddenly tighter as her
Speaker 1: hand began to tremble. When I looked at her again,
Speaker 1: what I saw scared me. Her eyes were wide and
Speaker 1: her face had gone nearly white. She could see something
Speaker 1: that I couldn't. I didn't stand up, but I turned
Speaker 1: back and looked to where the elk once lay. And
Speaker 1: then it happened, with a sort of grunting sound and
Speaker 1: a tremendous leap, A huge hair covered things sprang from
Speaker 1: the ferns below the footpath and landed not thirty yards
Speaker 1: in front of us. It was absurdly large, way bigger
Speaker 1: than either of the bull elk that had stood there
Speaker 1: moments before. I knew exactly what I was looking at.
Speaker 1: There was no doubt in my mind I was staring
Speaker 1: at the same thing Patterson filmed all those years ago,
Speaker 1: massive and very dark brown, standing on two legs, attached
Speaker 1: to these giant feet, and it was staring at us. First,
Speaker 1: it looked at Carrie, and then at me, and then
Speaker 1: back at Carrie again, and over and over for what
Speaker 1: seemed like an eternity. I was frozen in fear. I
Speaker 1: wanted to run, I wanted to scream, or to cry,
Speaker 1: or at least close my eyes, but I couldn't do
Speaker 1: any of those things. Carries grew up, tightened to the
Speaker 1: point that she was causing me pain, and then she
Speaker 1: let go. She didn't step away, she remained directly behind me.
Speaker 1: And then my girlfriend did something I would never have imagined.
Speaker 1: I felt her open the top compartment of my pack
Speaker 1: and remove one of the two apples we save for
Speaker 1: the coast trail portion of our height. The apple sailed
Speaker 1: over my head toward the beast that was staring at us,
Speaker 1: and it fell short and rolled off the trail and
Speaker 1: out of sight. Well this seemed to anger it, because
Speaker 1: it huffed once and then a second time, even harder.
Speaker 1: I whispered again, and Carrie replied, what, throw the other apple,
Speaker 1: and throw it hard, I said. She reached for the apple,
Speaker 1: and I saw the beast squint its eyes. The look
Speaker 1: we were getting was far more intimidating than when it
Speaker 1: first landed on the trail. Carrie chucked the second apple hard,
Speaker 1: and time crawled as I watched the apple sail toward
Speaker 1: the creature in slow motion, heading straight for its head.
Speaker 1: It was definitely going to hit it. For a second,
Speaker 1: I wondered how angry being hit by an apple would
Speaker 1: make it. And then, with little effort and amazing speed,
Speaker 1: it reached up and caught the apple about a foot
Speaker 1: from its neck and pushed it into its mouth, all
Speaker 1: in one fluid motion. I was so taken aback that
Speaker 1: I fell from my knees and was now sitting sideways
Speaker 1: on the ground, and Carrie dropped to her knees next
Speaker 1: to me as we watched in amazement while this bigfoot
Speaker 1: chewed the apple, huffed again in our direction, turned in
Speaker 1: the same direction that the elk had gone, and with
Speaker 1: two big steps, disappeared silently into the forest. It took
Speaker 1: several minutes before either of us caught our breath and
Speaker 1: snapped out of it, but neither said a word. We
Speaker 1: communicated by watching each other's breathing and nodding, and after
Speaker 1: a bit I gave her a gentle smile and she
Speaker 1: answered with one of her own, and we clasped hands
Speaker 1: very quickly walked the last three and a half miles
Speaker 1: to the trailhead. We didn't speak much on our journey
Speaker 1: home or for the next week. Eventually we discussed it.
Speaker 1: I had to know what made her think to throw
Speaker 1: the apples. She smiled and said, the Dixie cryptied guy.
Speaker 1: Oh no, no, no, no, no, no, don't blame anything
Speaker 1: on the Dixie cryptied guy. Okay, all right, let me
Speaker 1: give back. The Dixie cryptied guy told a story about
Speaker 1: a grandpa who gave a bigfoot his grandson's squirrels, and
Speaker 1: it seemed to work for them. We still occasionally talk
Speaker 1: about what happened that day. We've even shared the story
Speaker 1: with a few friends and family. Neither one of us
Speaker 1: expected for that to happen. We both hope it never does. Again,
Speaker 1: it's so far from our normal reality that it's hard
Speaker 1: to process. I never tell anyone exactly where it happened.
Speaker 1: I don't want people to go out there looking for
Speaker 1: these things. The woods are dangerous enough without running around
Speaker 1: trying to find something four or five times your size.
Speaker 1: And my advice is to enjoy the stories and watch
Speaker 1: the movies, but hope that you never make contact. Whatever
Speaker 1: man touches, he destroys. Maybe the Bigfoot have figured that out,
Speaker 1: and that's why they're so elusive.