Speaker 1: When I was seventeen, I came home from school one
Speaker 1: day to find my mother anxiously waiting for me. I've
Speaker 1: always been a laid back guy, so when she told
Speaker 1: me that she and my dad had decided to take
Speaker 1: a break for a while, I took it pretty well.
Speaker 1: In fact, it was me who ended up comforting her
Speaker 1: for the next couple of days. It seemed a bit weird.
Speaker 1: My dad wasn't around much even when we were together.
Speaker 1: He was an interstate truck driver. We were lucky if
Speaker 1: we saw him for a couple of hours one or
Speaker 1: two nights a week before he was off again, so
Speaker 1: his absence wasn't really unusual. That's why seeing his truck
Speaker 1: on a Monday when he was never home with such
Speaker 1: a surprise. I walked out the front as he was
Speaker 1: swinging the door open, and out jumped a huge black puppy.
Speaker 1: It was a massive Dane cross that I named Thor.
Speaker 1: My dad knew i'd wanted a dog for ages. I'd
Speaker 1: been shooting since I could hold a gun, but I
Speaker 1: never hunted with dogs. With Thor, I was going to
Speaker 1: get my chance to contribute to the pig chasing stories
Speaker 1: at school. Over the next four years, Thor grew to
Speaker 1: be very protective of me. At a wapping one hundred
Speaker 1: and ninety six pounds, that was a lot of protection.
Speaker 1: He did have a few anger issues. No one could
Speaker 1: pet him, and he wouldn't eat unless I gave him
Speaker 1: the food. He scared my mother a lot too. She'd
Speaker 1: always say, we need to get rid of that dog.
Speaker 1: He's going to bite someone. I always shrugged it off.
Speaker 1: One weekend, a mate I went to school with rang
Speaker 1: me and said that we were going pigging. He said
Speaker 1: to get my stuff together and he'd be at my
Speaker 1: place in an hour. I went and got Thor's pigging collar,
Speaker 1: a drink bottle, and my long range rifle. About nine am,
Speaker 1: my mate turned up in his white dual cave ute.
Speaker 1: His dog was already in the back and thora was
Speaker 1: nearly snapping the chain I had him on to get
Speaker 1: to the ute. He knew what we were doing and
Speaker 1: he was getting excited. After I loaded my stuff and
Speaker 1: we got on our way, I asked my mate where
Speaker 1: we were going the Poliga. He said, Now, for anyone
Speaker 1: who doesn't know or has not heard of the Paligue
Speaker 1: of forests, it's just outside of Narrowbrie, New South Wales.
Speaker 1: There have been so many Bigfoot stories about that place,
Speaker 1: even a movie made about it. There's a highway that
Speaker 1: runs through the middle of it. Big semi trailer trucks
Speaker 1: can blow tires and the drivers won't even pull up
Speaker 1: to fix them. Everybody knows about the stories and the
Speaker 1: sightings down there. I didn't know it, but we were
Speaker 1: about to add to the tally. It was about a
Speaker 1: two hour drive from my home down to the Palagua Forest.
Speaker 1: You can tell when the forest starts because the red
Speaker 1: soil on the side of the road turns to an
Speaker 1: almost sand or fine gravel. We continued until we saw
Speaker 1: an opening in a rarely used car track, and we
Speaker 1: turned in there and continued on for about fifteen minutes.
Speaker 1: My mate slowly pulled the ute up to a five
Speaker 1: wire fence at a tee intersection and said, this is it.
Speaker 1: Let's go. I asked him who owned the property. He
Speaker 1: just shrugged and giggled as he unchained his dog. He
Speaker 1: reached over to unchained Thor, but Thor's lips came up
Speaker 1: and his teeth came out. Go on, he's only playing,
Speaker 1: I said, Stop being a flossy and unclip it. I laughed,
Speaker 1: but he uttered an expletive and walked away. Defeated. I
Speaker 1: unclipped Thor's chain, slung my rifle over my shoulder, and
Speaker 1: off we went through the fence. We found a goat
Speaker 1: track and followed it for about ten minutes. It was
Speaker 1: pretty easy to walk through. The dogs were leading the
Speaker 1: way with their noses in the air, trying to scent
Speaker 1: some pigs. My mate's dog had a better nose than Thor's.
Speaker 1: It spun to the left, sniffed a few times, and
Speaker 1: then took off. My mate and I were doing our
Speaker 1: best to follow. Thor hadn't picked up any sent yet,
Speaker 1: so he stayed by my side, watching the other dog
Speaker 1: and waiting for the barking and pig squealing to begin.
Speaker 1: I crouched down next to him and put my arm
Speaker 1: around him, giving him encouragement. Where's the pigs? Boy? You listening?
Speaker 1: Where are they? He was getting psyched up. Both of
Speaker 1: his ears were standing straight up, and he was ready
Speaker 1: to go. My mate and his dog were gone for
Speaker 1: about two or three minutes. At this point, I couldn't
Speaker 1: see or hear either of them, just the grasshoppers and
Speaker 1: a few birds chirping. I was still crouched down next
Speaker 1: to my dog and watching in the direction my mate
Speaker 1: and his dog went. When I got an overwhelming feeling
Speaker 1: that we were being watched. I looked up and down
Speaker 1: the track, but a I didn't see anything. I spun
Speaker 1: on the balls of my feet to look behind me
Speaker 1: into the scrub, but I didn't see anything there. The
Speaker 1: bush was so thick to see more than thirty meters anyway.
Speaker 1: I spun Thor around to look in that direction. He
Speaker 1: was hesitant, still trying to watch the way my mate
Speaker 1: and his dog went, and I said, what's up here?
Speaker 2: What is it?
Speaker 1: Something finally got his attention. He stared out into the
Speaker 1: scrub as the hairs on his back stood up and
Speaker 1: he started to growl jackpot. I thought, we're on again.
Speaker 1: I stood up and pushed Thor in that direction. Get him, boy,
Speaker 1: I shouted, as he put his ears back, head down
Speaker 1: and took off into the scrub. A million miles an
Speaker 1: hour in five seconds, I couldn't see him. I was
Speaker 1: chasing after him as fast as I could, listening for
Speaker 1: a pig to squeal. I could still hear him barking,
Speaker 1: but it was getting farther and farther away. He was
Speaker 1: fifty meters ahead of me. I'd say, I was thinking, God,
Speaker 1: I hope they aren't much further. I hate running. Thor's
Speaker 1: barking stopped, and I stopped. I was waiting for a
Speaker 1: noise to tell me which way to run through the
Speaker 1: bush to get him. I waited, and I waited. Usually
Speaker 1: this happens pretty quick, and I kept waiting, and then
Speaker 1: I heard yelping. I had never in my life heard
Speaker 1: Thor yelp, not even when he was a puppy. He
Speaker 1: was yelping with every breath, and I could hear the
Speaker 1: yelps getting closer. Whatever was making him yelp, he was
Speaker 1: having no part of it and was heading back to me.
Speaker 1: I could see him coming through the bush faster than
Speaker 1: he went in, and he was still yelping. His tail
Speaker 1: was between his legs and cowering. He got back to
Speaker 1: my feet and pissed himself in fear. He was trying
Speaker 1: to hide behind me, looking back in the direction he'd
Speaker 1: just gone. This scared the absolute life out of me.
Speaker 1: I pulled my rifle off my and pressed it into
Speaker 1: my shoulder and waited for whatever was chasing my dog
Speaker 1: to show itself. I couldn't hear a thing except for
Speaker 1: Thor's whimpering. As I stood there staring into the scrub,
Speaker 1: a smell hit me. I thought Thor had lost control
Speaker 1: of his bowels and then rolled and burnt hair. I
Speaker 1: could hear my mate's dog barking behind us as they
Speaker 1: returned to the road that I was standing on. I
Speaker 1: could hear them a fair bit behind us, but I
Speaker 1: wasn't game to take my eyes off the scrub in
Speaker 1: front of me. His dog picked up our scent and
Speaker 1: they found us. My mate called out, did you get
Speaker 1: one or what? I shushed him. Something ain't right, I said.
Speaker 1: He didn't even acknowledge what I said, and started walking
Speaker 1: back to the road. I yelled out, I'm going back
Speaker 1: to the ute and I'm leaving. He yelled over to
Speaker 1: me and said for me to stop being a baby. No, mate,
Speaker 1: something's wrong. I'm leaving. I told him he knew I
Speaker 1: wasn't joking, and he agreed. I walked backwards the entire
Speaker 1: trip back to the ute. My mate climbed through the
Speaker 1: fence and I passed him my gun so I could
Speaker 1: climb through. I insisted on driving. I just wanted to
Speaker 1: get out of there. We got packed up and started
Speaker 1: down the trail that he'd driven us in on. After
Speaker 1: about two minutes of driving in silence, both dogs on
Speaker 1: the back started barking and looking out the left side
Speaker 1: of the ute into the scrub. My mate said, hey,
Speaker 1: pull up, we'll let the dogs off. I quickly turned
Speaker 1: down his request, and he said pull over. Then he
Speaker 1: pulled the handbrake, stalling the ute. He pulled his gun
Speaker 1: up to his shoulder and looked through the scope into
Speaker 1: the scrub. The dogs were going ballistic. Now. I looked
Speaker 1: over and saw something about forty meters out. My mate
Speaker 1: was trying to find this thing in his scope, waving
Speaker 1: it back and forth. He pushed the bolt forward down
Speaker 1: and he chambered a bullet, still looking for whatever it was,
Speaker 1: and the scope he must have had the magnification turned
Speaker 1: up a fair bit because he was struggling to find it,
Speaker 1: and then he gasped. I stared at him for a minute,
Speaker 1: waiting for an answer, before nearly yelling what is it.
Speaker 1: He uncocked the gun and it said, mate, I think
Speaker 1: it's a bloke. He took his eye away from the
Speaker 1: scope and looked over the gun back to the scope.
Speaker 1: And back over the gun. He cocked it again, aimed
Speaker 1: down below the tree, and then boom. The warning shot
Speaker 1: rang out as this thing spun around and ran off
Speaker 1: on two legs, just like you or I. The sound
Speaker 1: of this thing's feet hitting the ground and breaking off
Speaker 1: the branches as it ran still scares me. My mate
Speaker 1: turned to me and he said, yeah, fair call, let's go.
Speaker 1: I have never been back to this place. I never
Speaker 1: planned to go back by any means. Thanks for reading
Speaker 1: my story. Sorry for the spelling mistakes. I know I
Speaker 1: sound dyslexic. Brother, you aren't near as dyslexic as I am.
Speaker 1: But this was a great story because he's got this dog,
Speaker 1: this two hundred pound dog or ninety six kilogram dog
Speaker 1: that is just fearless, and it's a vicious dog. And
Speaker 1: this dog is scared to death of whatever that was.
Speaker 1: I'm almost sure that that thing got after his dog.
Speaker 1: I don't know. I could elaborate on this story forever,
Speaker 1: but it's real exciting. It's another story from Australia, from
Speaker 1: our good friends in Australia. I've read a little bit
Speaker 1: about the Peliga Forest. I understand they've got some issues
Speaker 1: with fracking and gas extraction in that area. It's a beautiful,
Speaker 1: pristine wilderness and I think the I think industry is
Speaker 1: coming in and really giving the farmer's trouble. And so anyway,
Speaker 1: if you're interested in that, look up the Poliga Forest
Speaker 1: in Australia and learn about it. It's an interesting story
Speaker 1: about that. Okay, I'll quit Ramblin. Appreciate the email, buddy,
Speaker 1: thank you.
Speaker 2: I'm a reserve police officer and a private security officer
Speaker 2: who contracts for state and the federal government, so I'd
Speaker 2: like to keep my name and exactly where I'm from
Speaker 2: is quiet as not. Everyone in my line of work
Speaker 2: is so open minded. The thing about northern Illinois that
Speaker 2: not a lot of people think about is there's a
Speaker 2: lot of bigfoot activity. I never really believed it, as
Speaker 2: I'm an avid hunter and outdoorsman who spent more of
Speaker 2: my childhood outside rather than inside. Part of my security
Speaker 2: job includes doing patient transports between various hospitals and mental
Speaker 2: health facilities in the Midwest, and on one of these
Speaker 2: I saw something that made me a believer in all
Speaker 2: the stories I heard as a kid. We were on
Speaker 2: the road for a few hours. When we finally got
Speaker 2: to the Illinois Missouri border the Mississippi. That river marked
Speaker 2: that we were close to the town we were going to,
Speaker 2: about one hundred or so miles south of the Iowa border.
Speaker 2: We dropped off the patient without an issue, and I
Speaker 2: was glad as the amount of nicotine and caffeine in
Speaker 2: my system wasn't quite enough to fuel me through a
Speaker 2: physical confrontation. We stopped by a local diner and headed
Speaker 2: out on our way. When we got back to the
Speaker 2: bridge heading back into Illinois, I saw what I initially
Speaker 2: took as a farmer out in his field, which I
Speaker 2: thought was strange as it was one am, but I
Speaker 2: shrugged it off as a sick animal. Then he went
Speaker 2: into a pen and threw what looked like a sheep
Speaker 2: over his shoulder. We kept driving and I noticed out
Speaker 2: of the corner of my eye the same figure running
Speaker 2: towards the river, which I thought was strange and made
Speaker 2: me focus more on him. It was then that I
Speaker 2: realized that this was too tall to be a man,
Speaker 2: because the corn wasn't even up to his chest and
Speaker 2: the sheep was absolutely puny over his shoulder. I initially
Speaker 2: thought that it was a lamb, but now it became
Speaker 2: clear it was a full grown adult that had to
Speaker 2: be at least two hundred pounds, if not more. When
Speaker 2: it got to the river, it walked in and started swimming,
Speaker 2: going straight across the current, not even seeming to touch it.
Speaker 2: Despite having one arm handicap by its cargo. He got
Speaker 2: onto the Illinois side and crawled onto the bank with
Speaker 2: ease despite what might have been a six foot incline,
Speaker 2: and disappeared into the treeline. The surprise of seeing him
Speaker 2: scale that incline made me swallow some of the dip
Speaker 2: I had in my lip, and I was coughing when
Speaker 2: my partner woke up and asked what happened. I explained
Speaker 2: the situation to him, and he said I need to
Speaker 2: cut down on the overtime and that the lack of
Speaker 2: sleep was getting to my head. When we got back
Speaker 2: to the office, I talked to my sergeant, who has
Speaker 2: twenty years law enforcement experience on top of four years
Speaker 2: active duty in the Marine Corps. He put a hand
Speaker 2: on my shoulder and he said that there are things
Speaker 2: out there that shouldn't be talked about and left it
Speaker 2: at that. The whole experience has left me looking over
Speaker 2: my shoulder every time I'm out hunting and has given
Speaker 2: me a newfound respect for the woods. Many years ago,
Speaker 2: I was invited to go hunting in southeast Oklahoma. I
Speaker 2: worked with a guy that invited me, but did not
Speaker 2: really know the others. The coworker remains my best friend
Speaker 2: to this day. We all met at the same spot
Speaker 2: for about three seasons. Then for different reasons, it was
Speaker 2: just me. I didn't mind. I loved it, and it
Speaker 2: was a good spot. This place is for public hunting
Speaker 2: in the Watchataw Mountains. It's also famous for bigfoot sightings.
Speaker 2: For all my years in the woods, I've gained a
Speaker 2: lot of skills in experience. I was sure that if
Speaker 2: anyone could find bigfoot, it would be me. Up until
Speaker 2: this point, I never had any definite proof. I have, however,
Speaker 2: seen and heard things that I could not explain, so
Speaker 2: I keep an open mind. The first couple of solo
Speaker 2: trips were uneventful. I never worried about anything. I was
Speaker 2: always armed with a pistol, a rifle, and a shotgun.
Speaker 2: The rifle was with me in the woods, the shotgun
Speaker 2: rested on a chair while in camp, and the pistol
Speaker 2: never left my side. My trips were well planned, so
Speaker 2: I always had more than enough provisions to last the
Speaker 2: whole time. Sometimes I'd stay as long as a month.
Speaker 2: That's how much I loved it, now that I think
Speaker 2: about it. Weird things started happening. The first time one
Speaker 2: went alone. A chair or a tool or other small
Speaker 2: things would be in a different spot when I returned
Speaker 2: to camp, nothing missing. It was just move I just
Speaker 2: put it down as absent mindedness on my part. And
Speaker 2: then one day it started. First it was a small
Speaker 2: rock that landed about ten feet away. I was sitting
Speaker 2: in a chair, sharpening my knife and sipping on a beer.
Speaker 2: I looked in the direction from which it came, and
Speaker 2: I saw nothing. I didn't hear anything either, I mean nothing,
Speaker 2: no birds or anything. It was unnerving, to say the least.
Speaker 2: After a few minutes, I picked up the same rock
Speaker 2: and I threw it back where it came from. It
Speaker 2: took several minutes, but to my surprise, the same exact
Speaker 2: rock came back almost in the same spot that it
Speaker 2: landed the first time. I didn't sleep that night, but
Speaker 2: I was on high alert. The next morning, I was
Speaker 2: cold and went to the wood pop so I could
Speaker 2: stoke the fire and get a pot of coffee going,
Speaker 2: I grabbed a log, but on the chopping block I
Speaker 2: saw it. It was a small figure, crudely fashioned out
Speaker 2: of pine needles. I picked it up and studied it.
Speaker 2: Two arms, two legs, and a head. That's when all
Speaker 2: of my anxiety faded away. I held it up and
Speaker 2: looking around, I said thank you. I was sure that
Speaker 2: whatever had left it meant me no harm. Things like
Speaker 2: this happened for the next three or four years. We
Speaker 2: even started exchanging gifts. It left an arrowhead one time,
Speaker 2: another time just a shiny rock from the river, which
Speaker 2: was about a mile away. In exchange, I would leave
Speaker 2: an apple or some cookies. The small rock throwing also continued,
Speaker 2: like a game that we both enjoyed. I never saw it,
Speaker 2: but I could since when it was there. We had
Speaker 2: become friends. Always camped in the same spot, and this
Speaker 2: year was the same. I was always pumped for deer season,
Speaker 2: especially to visit my friend again. It always waited until
Speaker 2: I was finished setting up camp and could sit down
Speaker 2: for a little rest, then the rock tossing game would
Speaker 2: start again. It had become our thing. About a half
Speaker 2: hour before dark, we both heard it. It was an
Speaker 2: old pickup with a bad exhaustedly screaming down the main
Speaker 2: gravel road. Not really unusual, everyone knew about the meth
Speaker 2: problems in that part of the state. What was unusual
Speaker 2: It came straight into my camp. It slid to a
Speaker 2: stop right in front of me. When the dust cleared,
Speaker 2: I could see them, four mails between about sixteen and forty,
Speaker 2: all sitting in an eighty model's Chevy single cab pickup truck.
Speaker 2: I wasn't too worried. The shotgun was close by. When
Speaker 2: they all got out at the same time, I knew
Speaker 2: it was tweaker, and man were they on it. They
Speaker 2: all acted like they had spiders on their clothes in
Speaker 2: their hair. The driver I thought his eyeballs were going
Speaker 2: to explode. And their agitated state and almost incoherent speech,
Speaker 2: they said I was on their private property. I knew
Speaker 2: they saw the shotgun that was within my reachs So
Speaker 2: without getting up or raising my voice, I said, no,
Speaker 2: this is public land. I've been hunting here for years.
Speaker 2: That's when they got really wound up. They all started
Speaker 2: yelling at the same time and started in my direction.
Speaker 2: But before I got my hand on the shotgun, I
Speaker 2: saw something big fly through the air from my right.
Speaker 2: It was a basketball sized boulder. It crashed into the
Speaker 2: driver's side bed of the truck. It was loud, and
Speaker 2: it scared them more than me, only because I saw
Speaker 2: it coming. One of them fell on the ground in
Speaker 2: a stupor. The other three turned to look at the
Speaker 2: giant dent in the side of the truck. That gave
Speaker 2: me a couple of extra seconds to grab the shotgun
Speaker 2: and stand up. When they turned back towards me, they
Speaker 2: were looking at the business end of a Remington eight seventy.
Speaker 2: We all stood staring each other for what seemed like
Speaker 2: an hour, It was in fact only a second or two.
Speaker 2: Then came the loudest, scariest noise I had ever heard
Speaker 2: in my life, kind of a roar plus a scream,
Speaker 2: and it hurt my ears. As they were staring at me,
Speaker 2: I calmly said, you boys, get on. They picked the
Speaker 2: one up from the ground, scrambled back in the pickup,
Speaker 2: and slung rocks getting out of there. When we couldn't
Speaker 2: hear the truck anymore, I sat back down in my
Speaker 2: chair and had a shot of whiskey. By this time
Speaker 2: it was dark. I sat there in the dark, trying
Speaker 2: to figure out what I was going to do next.
Speaker 2: Should I stay or should I go? That's when I
Speaker 2: heard a familiar sound. My friend tossed a small rock
Speaker 2: that landed near my feet. I laughed out loud and
Speaker 2: threw the same rock back. I slept off and on
Speaker 2: that night, with mister Remington in my lap, but unafraid.
Speaker 2: The next morning, I had decided to go ahead and leave.
Speaker 2: It wasn't safe for my friend and I, so I
Speaker 2: got up. I made coffee and breakfast, and had one
Speaker 2: last game of rock toss. I was packed up and
Speaker 2: ready to leave about ten am. I knew he was
Speaker 2: still there, although I never saw him. But right before
Speaker 2: I left, I took everything I planned as gifts for
Speaker 2: him and left it on the chopping block. In return,
Speaker 2: I found the rock that we played our game with.
Speaker 2: I said goodbye in a soft voice, and I left.
Speaker 2: That was about fifteen years ago. I never went back
Speaker 2: to that spot. Since then, I've camped and hunted in
Speaker 2: a lot of different places, from Oklahoma to North Carolina.
Speaker 2: Whenever I'm sure i'm alone, I'll pick up a small
Speaker 2: rock and throw it towards the thick part of the woods,
Speaker 2: but it never comes back. This is a true story,
Speaker 2: believe it, or leave it alone.