1
00:00:06,120 --> 00:00:08,480
Speaker 1: I never dreamt in a million years that I would

2
00:00:08,480 --> 00:00:12,240
ever have an experience, let alone speak of it. But

3
00:00:12,320 --> 00:00:15,960
I feel comfortable to tell it. The only ones who

4
00:00:16,000 --> 00:00:19,359
know about it are my mother, my son, my daughter,

5
00:00:19,600 --> 00:00:23,440
and myself and now you. I am a believer of

6
00:00:23,559 --> 00:00:27,320
many things. I believe in the paranormal. I believe that

7
00:00:27,480 --> 00:00:31,519
dreams come true. I believe people may have seen something,

8
00:00:32,119 --> 00:00:35,520
but a bigfoot. I wasn't sure what to think of this.

9
00:00:36,159 --> 00:00:41,359
I wasn't sure until twenty fifteen. That is. We moved

10
00:00:41,359 --> 00:00:44,679
from Houston to Central Texas, and the way best to

11
00:00:44,759 --> 00:00:47,600
describe it was it was a neighborhood, but it was

12
00:00:47,640 --> 00:00:51,320
a country version of a neighborhood, where each property was

13
00:00:51,320 --> 00:00:55,119
at least an acre, give or take. We had wildlife

14
00:00:55,159 --> 00:00:58,039
out there, and I was quite excited to see wild

15
00:00:58,079 --> 00:01:01,200
deer in our front yard. And of course we would

16
00:01:01,200 --> 00:01:06,200
hear a bobcat and hear codes occasionally. I am a

17
00:01:06,239 --> 00:01:10,519
single mom of two beautiful adult children. My youngest girl

18
00:01:10,680 --> 00:01:14,400
has a disability. It's like dealing with a giant four

19
00:01:14,519 --> 00:01:17,840
year old. I'm very close to my mother, and we

20
00:01:17,920 --> 00:01:22,560
all decided that we wanted to live together. We moved

21
00:01:22,560 --> 00:01:27,200
into a huge four bedroom manufactured home, and let's just

22
00:01:27,319 --> 00:01:29,840
say that we could meet in the kitchen and would

23
00:01:29,879 --> 00:01:33,359
be halfway through the house, and basically each side of

24
00:01:33,400 --> 00:01:36,400
the home had the privacy of a two bedroom apartment.

25
00:01:37,519 --> 00:01:40,599
One night, I was outside with my son walking one

26
00:01:40,640 --> 00:01:44,640
of our German shepherds. I adore German shepherds, and we

27
00:01:44,719 --> 00:01:47,840
have three of them and a pit bull puppy, and

28
00:01:47,879 --> 00:01:52,439
they're all rescues. We spend a lot of time outside.

29
00:01:53,079 --> 00:01:55,079
One of the gentlemen that used to live around the

30
00:01:55,120 --> 00:01:57,719
neighborhood stopped in the road and he told us that

31
00:01:57,799 --> 00:02:01,719
we shouldn't be out there in the night. In his words,

32
00:02:01,719 --> 00:02:06,000
there's a big animal that roams around here. We assumed

33
00:02:06,000 --> 00:02:08,199
that he was either messing with us or he was

34
00:02:08,280 --> 00:02:11,080
talking about a big coyote or even a mountain lion

35
00:02:11,400 --> 00:02:14,000
that had been seen in the town next to us.

36
00:02:15,080 --> 00:02:17,400
My son and I said, thank you, but I think

37
00:02:17,439 --> 00:02:21,360
we'll be okay. He said, trust me, you won't be

38
00:02:21,759 --> 00:02:25,639
if this thing comes out. At that point we knew

39
00:02:25,680 --> 00:02:29,479
he was being over dramatic. Maybe he was even drunk.

40
00:02:30,800 --> 00:02:33,080
One night, my son was out and I was in

41
00:02:33,120 --> 00:02:35,599
the kitchen having a cup of coffee with my mother

42
00:02:35,879 --> 00:02:38,840
and talking about some plans we had. The following day,

43
00:02:39,960 --> 00:02:42,520
my daughter came in and announced that she saw a

44
00:02:42,560 --> 00:02:46,240
big man looking in her window. We assumed that she

45
00:02:46,360 --> 00:02:50,560
had been dreaming, and we treated it like that. She said, no, Mom,

46
00:02:50,599 --> 00:02:53,159
it was a big man outside he was looking in.

47
00:02:53,800 --> 00:02:57,759
It's a monster man. My mother mentioned that my son

48
00:02:57,879 --> 00:03:00,599
had been allowing her to watch scary mo movies while

49
00:03:00,599 --> 00:03:03,199
he was supposed to be watching her, and now she

50
00:03:03,360 --> 00:03:07,639
was having nightmares. So I asked what did the monster

51
00:03:07,840 --> 00:03:10,800
look like, and she said that he had red eyes

52
00:03:10,879 --> 00:03:14,599
that glowed in long hair on his face, that he

53
00:03:14,680 --> 00:03:18,479
looked really scary. Well, none of that made sense, but

54
00:03:18,599 --> 00:03:22,319
she slept with her grandmother that night and all was quiet.

55
00:03:23,319 --> 00:03:27,360
My daughter attends the school for adults with disabilities. My

56
00:03:27,439 --> 00:03:30,120
mother had taken her there the next morning, and I

57
00:03:30,159 --> 00:03:32,960
asked my son if he had allowed his sister to

58
00:03:33,000 --> 00:03:36,479
watch a scary movie. He said, no, Mom, I would

59
00:03:36,520 --> 00:03:39,879
never do that. I told him what she said, and

60
00:03:40,000 --> 00:03:43,039
my son became concerned and looked around the house and

61
00:03:43,120 --> 00:03:46,439
under the window, but we found no evidence of anything

62
00:03:46,560 --> 00:03:50,840
being there. Four nights later, while my son was out

63
00:03:50,879 --> 00:03:55,240
walking our shepherd, he caught a horrible odor in the area.

64
00:03:55,639 --> 00:03:58,400
We assumed it was a septic tank, but my son

65
00:03:58,479 --> 00:04:02,199
said the odor was much worse than that. Suddenly, the

66
00:04:02,280 --> 00:04:05,400
dogs began to growl and pace around at the front door.

67
00:04:06,080 --> 00:04:09,800
They wanted out. They did this when they knew deer

68
00:04:09,840 --> 00:04:11,919
were in the yard, and I was afraid they were

69
00:04:11,919 --> 00:04:15,120
going to start barking and annoy us for the next hour.

70
00:04:16,160 --> 00:04:19,600
But they never did bark. They acted different than when

71
00:04:19,639 --> 00:04:23,160
a deer was close. Their hackles were raised and they

72
00:04:23,160 --> 00:04:27,560
were all growling, a really strange growl. I had never

73
00:04:27,600 --> 00:04:31,480
heard them do this. I pushed past the dogs to

74
00:04:31,519 --> 00:04:34,600
look out the window, fully expecting to see deer in

75
00:04:34,639 --> 00:04:38,279
the yard, but instead I saw what looked like a

76
00:04:38,360 --> 00:04:42,240
giant man. It took a step forward, and it triggered

77
00:04:42,240 --> 00:04:44,959
the motion lights on the front of the house, and

78
00:04:45,040 --> 00:04:47,920
there it was fully illuminated in the glow of the

79
00:04:47,959 --> 00:04:53,040
security light. I could not speak or move. I think

80
00:04:53,079 --> 00:04:55,680
my mouth was hanging open trying to speak, but I

81
00:04:55,720 --> 00:05:00,079
couldn't form the words. My son was beside me, looking

82
00:05:00,120 --> 00:05:03,560
out the adjacent window. He immediately reached for me and

83
00:05:03,639 --> 00:05:06,399
pulled me away from the door and closed everything up,

84
00:05:06,439 --> 00:05:09,959
and then he checked all the locks. My mom yelled

85
00:05:10,000 --> 00:05:12,879
and said to call the police. And my response was, so,

86
00:05:12,959 --> 00:05:15,720
what are we gonna say? What do I say, mom?

87
00:05:15,959 --> 00:05:19,720
That a monster was in my front yard. My son

88
00:05:19,759 --> 00:05:22,800
had left the room, and soon he returned loading his

89
00:05:22,959 --> 00:05:26,800
grandfather's deer rifle, and then we heard a gunshot in

90
00:05:26,879 --> 00:05:31,040
the distance and everything got quiet. We never went out

91
00:05:31,079 --> 00:05:35,120
to investigate, and that night was a fitful night of sleep.

92
00:05:35,639 --> 00:05:38,399
Not much of us got any sleep at all. And

93
00:05:38,519 --> 00:05:41,079
I don't know what got into the dogs, but for

94
00:05:41,160 --> 00:05:43,480
the rest of the night they stayed away from the

95
00:05:43,560 --> 00:05:47,519
front door. Maybe they recognized the odor, or maybe they

96
00:05:47,600 --> 00:05:50,759
knew what this thing was, but they were not interested

97
00:05:50,800 --> 00:05:54,439
in going out. Still today they will not go out

98
00:05:54,439 --> 00:05:57,279
into the front yard, only out back, where they are

99
00:05:57,319 --> 00:06:02,240
inside a fence. The following day we ran into that

100
00:06:02,319 --> 00:06:05,680
strange neighbor. My son and I had seen that one

101
00:06:05,839 --> 00:06:09,199
night and had stopped by and he said, I told

102
00:06:09,240 --> 00:06:11,920
you that thing was big, didn't I? And I asked,

103
00:06:11,920 --> 00:06:14,600
what was that thing? And he said, you saw it,

104
00:06:14,639 --> 00:06:17,439
didn't you? You know what it was? And then he

105
00:06:17,600 --> 00:06:22,399
drove away. It was really weird. After that night, we

106
00:06:22,560 --> 00:06:25,839
never saw it again. There are times when I think

107
00:06:25,879 --> 00:06:28,839
it was near, though. The dogs always let us know

108
00:06:28,959 --> 00:06:33,240
when something was not right. News reports were on TV

109
00:06:33,439 --> 00:06:37,800
about bigfoot sightings in central Texas soon after this happened,

110
00:06:37,959 --> 00:06:42,480
and they continued sporadically for a year. Even after seeing

111
00:06:42,519 --> 00:06:45,079
the creature that night and then backed up by the

112
00:06:45,120 --> 00:06:48,839
strange man and the news reports, I still had a

113
00:06:48,879 --> 00:06:53,040
hard time believing that it was a bigfoot. I rationalized

114
00:06:53,079 --> 00:06:56,079
that it was a prank. We live in a college town,

115
00:06:56,279 --> 00:06:59,519
and maybe I thought some local kids were just playing

116
00:06:59,519 --> 00:07:03,240
a joe. But I remember how big this thing was,

117
00:07:03,879 --> 00:07:06,560
every bit of eight to nine feet tall, and it

118
00:07:06,680 --> 00:07:10,120
was very broad in the shoulders, and there were those

119
00:07:10,240 --> 00:07:14,279
red eyes. They were not fake, they were real. I

120
00:07:14,319 --> 00:07:16,720
don't know any college kids that are eight or nine

121
00:07:16,759 --> 00:07:20,720
feet tall, so I rule that out. The reports I

122
00:07:20,839 --> 00:07:23,959
saw on the local news and on the internet began

123
00:07:24,040 --> 00:07:27,079
to concern me, and I began to believe that it

124
00:07:27,199 --> 00:07:31,920
was a bigfoot. We have become believers since then. We

125
00:07:32,000 --> 00:07:36,040
didn't stay there much longer. Within a year, we moved away,

126
00:07:36,800 --> 00:07:39,839
not because of the bigfoot. We made the decision to

127
00:07:39,879 --> 00:07:42,800
get closer to the city for my daughter and my mother.

128
00:07:43,879 --> 00:07:47,120
I have not discussed this with anyone outside the family.

129
00:07:47,720 --> 00:07:49,720
This is the first time that I have made the

130
00:07:49,800 --> 00:07:53,600
event known. It feels good to get it off my chest,

131
00:07:53,720 --> 00:07:56,319
but I will admit that as I type this, the

132
00:07:56,439 --> 00:08:00,240
memories and panic of that night are flooding back. My

133
00:08:00,360 --> 00:08:04,279
hands are shaking here on the keyboard. It was all

134
00:08:04,439 --> 00:08:07,360
so shocking, and then when I saw my son walking

135
00:08:07,399 --> 00:08:11,079
in the room loading that rifle, I knew things were serious.

136
00:08:12,519 --> 00:08:15,759
After careful thoult though I do not think the creature

137
00:08:15,839 --> 00:08:20,360
meant us any harm. It made no aggressive gestures towards us.

138
00:08:20,879 --> 00:08:23,800
I think it may have been passing through or just wandering,

139
00:08:23,920 --> 00:08:28,079
and our yard provoked its curiosity. Thanks for allowing me

140
00:08:28,240 --> 00:08:35,720
to share my story, Signed Angela. I spent my teenage

141
00:08:35,799 --> 00:08:38,720
years growing up in the nineteen seventies outside of New

142
00:08:38,799 --> 00:08:44,200
York City and the cement covered suburbs. As teenagers, me

143
00:08:44,240 --> 00:08:47,840
and my buddies were fascinated with anything to do with Bigfoot.

144
00:08:48,879 --> 00:08:52,200
The legend of Boggy Creek and the Leonard Knemoy Bigfoot

145
00:08:52,240 --> 00:08:55,799
documentaries with Patterson. Film was about all we had to

146
00:08:55,879 --> 00:08:58,799
learn about these creatures, and most of the time we

147
00:08:58,840 --> 00:09:02,159
had to go to Saturday Nay's to see a re

148
00:09:02,159 --> 00:09:07,159
release of these films. We didn't have YouTube in those days.

149
00:09:07,559 --> 00:09:11,480
From everything we knew Bigfoots inhabited the woods, mountains and

150
00:09:11,639 --> 00:09:16,639
forests that stretched from northern California to British Columbia, and

151
00:09:16,679 --> 00:09:21,279
that was their territory. Even Boggy Creek, a story from

152
00:09:21,320 --> 00:09:25,279
the swamps of Texas Counta, Arkansas, was told as a

153
00:09:25,320 --> 00:09:28,559
weird folk tale of a three toed creature, and it

154
00:09:28,639 --> 00:09:33,120
was never identified as a bigfoot. It was only when

155
00:09:33,159 --> 00:09:36,000
I started college that I would learn this was incorrect.

156
00:09:36,879 --> 00:09:39,879
Bigfoots live a lot closer to my New York home,

157
00:09:40,480 --> 00:09:45,399
something that haunts me to this day. My encounter took

158
00:09:45,399 --> 00:09:48,120
place in nineteen eighty and I need to provide some

159
00:09:48,200 --> 00:09:52,039
background to the encounter. The group of us that grew

160
00:09:52,120 --> 00:09:55,159
up together were what you would call city slicker, good

161
00:09:55,159 --> 00:09:58,679
old boys. We lived in the city, but were all

162
00:09:58,679 --> 00:10:01,240
born with a longing for the the country in the woods.

163
00:10:02,720 --> 00:10:07,240
We were commuter and community college brethren. We all had

164
00:10:07,279 --> 00:10:11,720
CBE radios in our cars with handles and everything. This

165
00:10:11,879 --> 00:10:14,960
was during the Burt Reynolds phase of male bonding, and

166
00:10:15,000 --> 00:10:17,240
it kept the group of four of us pretty much

167
00:10:17,320 --> 00:10:22,559
tight together during our college years. One of our group, NICKI,

168
00:10:22,840 --> 00:10:25,639
was a seasoned deer hunter and had been hunting his

169
00:10:25,679 --> 00:10:30,559
family's upstate property since he was twelve. His parents owned

170
00:10:30,559 --> 00:10:33,879
a two bedroom hunter's cabin set on thirty five acres

171
00:10:33,919 --> 00:10:36,919
in the Catskill Mountains, one hundred and twenty miles north

172
00:10:37,000 --> 00:10:41,159
of New York City. We would visit Nicky's cabin on

173
00:10:41,240 --> 00:10:44,919
occasion when deer season had ended and get away from civilization.

174
00:10:46,600 --> 00:10:50,000
We had fun initiating other New York friends to nature

175
00:10:50,080 --> 00:10:53,600
by taking tough talking city folk up there and seeing

176
00:10:53,639 --> 00:10:56,039
if we could scare them enough so the tough guys

177
00:10:56,039 --> 00:10:59,600
would wet their pants. One easy way that we would

178
00:10:59,600 --> 00:11:02,120
scare the tough guys and see what they were made of.

179
00:11:02,720 --> 00:11:05,240
We would hike up the mountain just behind the cabin,

180
00:11:05,559 --> 00:11:07,799
and on the way down, one of us at the

181
00:11:07,960 --> 00:11:10,759
end of the line would tossh rock sideways into the

182
00:11:10,799 --> 00:11:14,679
woods adjacent to the trail, giving the impression that we

183
00:11:14,679 --> 00:11:19,080
were being stalked by a mountain lion. We lost a

184
00:11:19,159 --> 00:11:22,440
lot of city slickers that way. Most would never make

185
00:11:22,480 --> 00:11:25,519
a return trip, and we had many lives over this.

186
00:11:26,679 --> 00:11:30,679
Imagine Rocky Balboa in a leather jacket walking the woods,

187
00:11:30,720 --> 00:11:33,519
imagining he's about to be attacked by a mountain lion,

188
00:11:34,039 --> 00:11:37,080
and then asking to go home. You get the picture.

189
00:11:38,759 --> 00:11:42,120
In nineteen eighty, right after college midterms, it was just

190
00:11:42,279 --> 00:11:45,399
Nicky and I. We made the rounds of the local

191
00:11:45,480 --> 00:11:48,919
convenience stores and stocked the snow bank with some beer,

192
00:11:49,080 --> 00:11:53,000
coal cuts, and provisions. We lit up the Franklin stove

193
00:11:53,039 --> 00:11:55,720
and then had more than a few adult beverages before

194
00:11:55,759 --> 00:11:59,519
turning in. We each took a bedroom. I had the

195
00:11:59,559 --> 00:12:03,440
bedroom with the window facing the stream. I loved this

196
00:12:03,600 --> 00:12:05,919
room In the summer when I was lucky enough to

197
00:12:05,960 --> 00:12:09,639
get it. The sounds of the stream flowing came through

198
00:12:09,639 --> 00:12:12,279
the open window and would put me to sleep, like

199
00:12:12,399 --> 00:12:16,519
watching golf on TV. But April was still too chilly

200
00:12:16,559 --> 00:12:20,720
for open windows in the Catskulls. In the middle of

201
00:12:20,759 --> 00:12:23,600
the night, I felt myself being woken up by NICKI.

202
00:12:23,919 --> 00:12:26,480
He was saying that he was hearing some noise rustling

203
00:12:26,559 --> 00:12:30,320
on the cabin's porch. I didn't pay it any mine.

204
00:12:30,399 --> 00:12:32,480
I thought he was messing with me, which made him

205
00:12:32,519 --> 00:12:36,080
get a bit angry. When he finally had my attention,

206
00:12:36,399 --> 00:12:40,320
I listened, and I thought it was just raccoons. It

207
00:12:40,399 --> 00:12:44,559
wasn't unusual for raccoons to overlook the mothball snow bank

208
00:12:44,679 --> 00:12:47,320
and smell the food inside the cabin and look for

209
00:12:47,360 --> 00:12:50,679
a way to get in. So we clang two cast

210
00:12:50,720 --> 00:12:54,720
iron pots together and everything quieted down, and that was that.

211
00:12:56,399 --> 00:12:58,840
The next day we woke up together and found some

212
00:12:58,960 --> 00:13:03,240
raccoon tracks on the porch, proving my point. We ate

213
00:13:03,279 --> 00:13:06,759
breakfast and practiced our shooting skills in the pasture, knocking

214
00:13:06,840 --> 00:13:10,039
cans and bottles off the fence, and then joking how

215
00:13:10,039 --> 00:13:13,759
a raccoon didn't have a chance against us, But in

216
00:13:13,799 --> 00:13:16,679
reality I must say that the raccoon did have a

217
00:13:16,720 --> 00:13:21,000
great chance. And though we were familiar with firearms, where

218
00:13:21,000 --> 00:13:24,960
we lived didn't provide much opportunity for practice, and it

219
00:13:25,080 --> 00:13:27,960
showed because at the beginning of each gun outing I

220
00:13:28,000 --> 00:13:30,120
could not hit the side of a barn with a

221
00:13:30,200 --> 00:13:33,639
dead cat, and only improved to nicking a bottle at

222
00:13:33,679 --> 00:13:36,399
twenty yards with a twenty two after a few hours

223
00:13:36,399 --> 00:13:41,120
of practice. However, a twelve gage shotgun on improved cylinder

224
00:13:41,320 --> 00:13:45,399
choked could make anyone feel like Sergeant Yorke. The rest

225
00:13:45,440 --> 00:13:47,320
of the day was more of the same, and we

226
00:13:47,360 --> 00:13:50,159
settled in for a good meal, a pan of seer

227
00:13:50,320 --> 00:13:53,559
chicken and pasta and wine and one too many wild

228
00:13:53,559 --> 00:13:58,240
turkey shots for dessert. One thing Italian guys can do,

229
00:13:58,639 --> 00:14:01,440
even in the Sahara desert, is find a way to

230
00:14:01,519 --> 00:14:05,759
make some good pasta. That evening, in the middle of

231
00:14:05,799 --> 00:14:08,240
the night, Nikki woke me again to say the raccoon

232
00:14:08,279 --> 00:14:11,960
had returned. I was a bit tick, this time him

233
00:14:12,000 --> 00:14:15,200
being the deer hunter, suggesting he scared the raccoon off

234
00:14:15,240 --> 00:14:18,480
by himself. Forget the twenty two. He knows the drill.

235
00:14:19,679 --> 00:14:21,960
I didn't hear the pots, and then, thinking about it,

236
00:14:22,080 --> 00:14:25,200
the rifle option would lead to an unwanted cleaning of

237
00:14:25,240 --> 00:14:29,559
a raccoon drill. Thankfully, I didn't hear the twenty two

238
00:14:29,799 --> 00:14:32,039
or the port sounds, and I went back to sleep

239
00:14:32,200 --> 00:14:37,080
on my wild turkey. The next morning, I woke early

240
00:14:37,120 --> 00:14:40,240
and decided I would do one of my rituals. I

241
00:14:40,279 --> 00:14:43,039
would hike the trail behind the mountain alone, which I

242
00:14:43,039 --> 00:14:45,559
would often do in the summer to work off the

243
00:14:45,600 --> 00:14:48,559
pasta in the wild turkey, and then I would come

244
00:14:48,600 --> 00:14:51,919
back and make a mean ham and egg breakfast. This

245
00:14:51,960 --> 00:14:55,440
would be an apology for not helping with the raccoons.

246
00:14:56,120 --> 00:14:58,799
After all, that was his cabin and I wanted to

247
00:14:58,840 --> 00:15:03,120
come back to this play. I grabbed my walking stick

248
00:15:03,159 --> 00:15:05,559
and I told half sleeping Nikki that I was going

249
00:15:05,639 --> 00:15:07,519
to do my hike and that i'd be back in

250
00:15:07,559 --> 00:15:10,039
a while and he could make coffee, but leave the

251
00:15:10,080 --> 00:15:14,360
breakfast to me. I headed out to the porch and

252
00:15:14,399 --> 00:15:17,679
I found it covered not in raccoon prints, but lumps

253
00:15:17,720 --> 00:15:21,559
of sandy dirt. It was like someone squashed a few

254
00:15:21,600 --> 00:15:26,120
ant mounds on the porch. In retrospect, there weren't any

255
00:15:26,200 --> 00:15:29,159
signs of footprints or anything that would give me pauls

256
00:15:29,240 --> 00:15:32,919
to investigate. There were no bear tracks, though I knew

257
00:15:33,039 --> 00:15:36,240
enough that any black bear mama probably would not drag

258
00:15:36,279 --> 00:15:40,279
her cubs onto a porch with humans. Maybe a New

259
00:15:40,360 --> 00:15:44,840
Jersey black bear, but not one of the catskills. Still,

260
00:15:44,919 --> 00:15:47,960
I didn't see any bear or mountain lion tracks, and

261
00:15:48,000 --> 00:15:50,559
I had seen both in my travels to the cabin,

262
00:15:51,320 --> 00:15:56,200
So off I went on my height thirty minutes up

263
00:15:56,240 --> 00:15:59,279
the trail. Just over a mile up the mountain behind

264
00:15:59,320 --> 00:16:03,120
the cabin, I noticed a pile of wood occupying the trail.

265
00:16:04,240 --> 00:16:07,159
This struck me since the trail was maybe twenty or

266
00:16:07,200 --> 00:16:10,679
twenty five yards wide and the wood debris pile looks

267
00:16:10,759 --> 00:16:14,919
like it was deliberately placed there more In fact, they

268
00:16:14,960 --> 00:16:17,519
looked inder woven, like a nest of the way you

269
00:16:17,559 --> 00:16:21,480
would see a beaver dam. At this point, I looked

270
00:16:21,519 --> 00:16:23,480
at the stream on my right and I found it

271
00:16:23,559 --> 00:16:27,000
almost dry. I thought a beaver might have built a

272
00:16:27,080 --> 00:16:29,840
dam on the stream, and this could be a problem.

273
00:16:30,639 --> 00:16:33,399
If the dam were large enough and broke, it could

274
00:16:33,440 --> 00:16:37,039
reroute the stream directly toward the cabin below. So I

275
00:16:37,080 --> 00:16:42,600
slowly approached to investigate. I heard a water slapping sound

276
00:16:42,679 --> 00:16:46,519
like a beaver's tail on the water before diving. I

277
00:16:46,639 --> 00:16:49,559
was still walking uphill and where the beaver chose to

278
00:16:49,559 --> 00:16:52,120
build this dam was one of the only flat areas

279
00:16:52,159 --> 00:16:55,399
that the stream flows, but not typically wide enough for

280
00:16:55,519 --> 00:16:59,720
a dam in a pond. As I climbed, I saw

281
00:16:59,759 --> 00:17:03,639
a tough to fur over a mound, and then it disappeared.

282
00:17:04,759 --> 00:17:07,960
I climbed to investigate the level area. It was a

283
00:17:08,000 --> 00:17:12,279
modest dam and lodge. The pond could only have measured

284
00:17:12,279 --> 00:17:15,839
one hundred feet long and maybe forty feet wide, pretty

285
00:17:15,839 --> 00:17:19,480
small for a beaver. And even though I hadn't been

286
00:17:19,519 --> 00:17:23,319
there since last summer and Nicky was there during deer season,

287
00:17:23,759 --> 00:17:26,000
the dam could have been there a while, but it

288
00:17:26,079 --> 00:17:30,839
looked like new construction. It was the only extended flat

289
00:17:30,880 --> 00:17:34,920
spot on this trail until you reach the mountaintop. I

290
00:17:35,000 --> 00:17:38,319
was excited about the prospect of seeing a beaver build

291
00:17:38,400 --> 00:17:41,519
his dam and lodge, so I walked quietly and was

292
00:17:41,559 --> 00:17:45,079
able to walk around it. I watched it for some

293
00:17:45,319 --> 00:17:49,160
time while not disturbing anything, and suddenly, from deep off

294
00:17:49,160 --> 00:17:52,079
the side of the lodge, I heard a loud branch snap.

295
00:17:53,160 --> 00:17:55,599
I thought the beaver was at work and out of sight.

296
00:17:56,160 --> 00:18:00,720
I should let him be. After hiking further up the mountain,

297
00:18:00,960 --> 00:18:04,079
I visited an old abandoned cabin that I knew about,

298
00:18:04,440 --> 00:18:08,240
and I looked at the larger hilltop pond. It looked

299
00:18:08,279 --> 00:18:11,519
the same. It was two hundred feet wide, and I

300
00:18:11,559 --> 00:18:14,839
wondered why the beaver didn't build his lodge there, And

301
00:18:14,880 --> 00:18:19,119
then I decided to head back down. I approached the

302
00:18:19,200 --> 00:18:21,799
part of the trail and stream that leads to where

303
00:18:21,839 --> 00:18:26,279
the beaver pond was, and I began humming loudly, sounding

304
00:18:26,319 --> 00:18:30,519
out song words to make myself heard. I didn't want

305
00:18:30,559 --> 00:18:33,960
to mess with a beaver, even though they're slower on land.

306
00:18:34,279 --> 00:18:36,839
I knew that their territorial and could have a mean

307
00:18:36,920 --> 00:18:41,319
streak when you approach them or when they're surprised. When

308
00:18:41,359 --> 00:18:44,480
I was fifty yards away. My jaw dropped when I

309
00:18:44,480 --> 00:18:47,519
saw the outline of a black bear sniffing around the

310
00:18:47,519 --> 00:18:51,559
beaver lodge. I stopped and was gripping my walking stick,

311
00:18:51,640 --> 00:18:55,839
wishing I had the shotgun. I was worried. I stumbled

312
00:18:55,880 --> 00:18:59,319
on a mama black bear with some cubs nearby, so

313
00:18:59,359 --> 00:19:03,319
I looked around, but I didn't see any black bears.

314
00:19:03,319 --> 00:19:06,519
And mountain lions are the most dangerous things in these parts,

315
00:19:06,599 --> 00:19:09,519
and black bears are more violent with people than grizzlies

316
00:19:09,599 --> 00:19:13,720
or brown bears. I did have the small pond separating

317
00:19:13,799 --> 00:19:16,440
me and the bear, but the bear looked strange in

318
00:19:16,519 --> 00:19:21,079
the shadows of the morning forest canopy. It acted uninterested

319
00:19:21,160 --> 00:19:23,920
in me and my noise, and more interested in the

320
00:19:24,039 --> 00:19:28,920
dam and pond. And then it stood up and it

321
00:19:29,039 --> 00:19:33,839
wasn't a bear. My mind drew a blank. I was

322
00:19:33,920 --> 00:19:39,359
looking at a seven foot broad shouldered monkey. I couldn't

323
00:19:39,400 --> 00:19:43,400
believe what my eyes were seeing. I am six foot

324
00:19:43,440 --> 00:19:46,039
one and the width of this thing was from my

325
00:19:46,200 --> 00:19:50,880
toes to my chest about three feet plus. I admit

326
00:19:51,000 --> 00:19:53,599
that I thought for one split second that Nicky had

327
00:19:53,640 --> 00:19:56,519
pulled the greatest prank on me, but This was a

328
00:19:56,559 --> 00:19:59,880
costume no one I knew could fit inside or mate.

329
00:20:00,160 --> 00:20:02,759
And the way the skin and muscles moved under its

330
00:20:02,759 --> 00:20:08,000
silky black fur, this was no costume. Whatever it was,

331
00:20:08,200 --> 00:20:12,200
it was definitely a male and well over seven feet tall.

332
00:20:12,920 --> 00:20:17,720
It probably weighed five hundred pounds. There was only two

333
00:20:17,839 --> 00:20:20,799
hundred feet between me and this thing. Now I could

334
00:20:20,880 --> 00:20:24,000
make out its face. It was a cross between a

335
00:20:24,000 --> 00:20:29,279
gorilla and a man. Its skin was gray, like a gorilla,

336
00:20:29,759 --> 00:20:34,200
protruding nostrils and mouth. There was a large brow ridge,

337
00:20:34,599 --> 00:20:36,839
and the lips were more like that of a human

338
00:20:37,000 --> 00:20:41,319
compared to a chimp. Well, I was half confused, since

339
00:20:41,359 --> 00:20:45,200
I thought bigfoots only lived in the Pacific Northwest. They

340
00:20:45,240 --> 00:20:48,279
weren't one hundred and twenty miles north of New York City.

341
00:20:49,400 --> 00:20:52,559
Well I stared at it for an eternity, and the

342
00:20:52,599 --> 00:20:55,880
creature raised its arm and grabbed a tree to its side,

343
00:20:56,000 --> 00:20:58,559
and I watched how it wrapped its fingers around the

344
00:20:58,599 --> 00:21:03,000
trunk of that tree. I didn't smell anything, and then

345
00:21:03,039 --> 00:21:07,960
the creature began slowly swaying side to side, always gripping

346
00:21:08,000 --> 00:21:11,400
the tree trunk and pulling himself closer to the tree

347
00:21:11,480 --> 00:21:15,480
with its right hand and then pushing out. Its eyes

348
00:21:15,519 --> 00:21:19,440
were on me the whole time. If it wanted to

349
00:21:19,440 --> 00:21:22,200
come at me, it would either breach the pond or

350
00:21:22,279 --> 00:21:25,519
move fast to get around it. So I never moved.

351
00:21:26,480 --> 00:21:29,839
My only defense was my three foot walking stick that

352
00:21:29,920 --> 00:21:33,119
I was clutching like the grim Reaper, and regretting that

353
00:21:33,240 --> 00:21:37,720
I didn't have my forty five or even my twelve gage.

354
00:21:38,119 --> 00:21:40,680
Looking at the size of this thing, I thought my

355
00:21:40,799 --> 00:21:44,279
forty five would have been suicide. This thing would get

356
00:21:44,319 --> 00:21:48,799
to me before the bullets did their final damage. I

357
00:21:48,880 --> 00:21:51,240
was calm, though now I began to sense that this

358
00:21:51,319 --> 00:21:54,880
thing didn't want to hurt me. It never growled or screamed.

359
00:21:55,240 --> 00:21:58,319
It just rocked back and forth into that one tree

360
00:21:58,319 --> 00:22:03,160
that it was grabbing. Suddenly, it pulled itself in one

361
00:22:03,200 --> 00:22:06,240
swinging twirl motion to the other side of the tree

362
00:22:06,279 --> 00:22:09,279
it was holding, turned its back to me, and it

363
00:22:09,359 --> 00:22:13,559
walked off. I slowly moved down the side of the

364
00:22:13,599 --> 00:22:17,319
pond opposite the side where I spotted the animal. I

365
00:22:17,359 --> 00:22:20,680
couldn't see it, and I didn't hear it. I didn't

366
00:22:20,720 --> 00:22:22,599
want to see it again, but I had to watch

367
00:22:22,680 --> 00:22:25,960
for it. I know. The only thought I had in

368
00:22:26,000 --> 00:22:27,759
my mind was to get the hell out of that

369
00:22:27,880 --> 00:22:32,039
place as soon as possible. Not just that trail, I

370
00:22:32,079 --> 00:22:34,839
had to get off that mountain and away from that cabin.

371
00:22:36,200 --> 00:22:41,400
I practically ran to the cabin, aided by the downhill slope.

372
00:22:41,519 --> 00:22:44,119
I nearly fell a few times, but I made it

373
00:22:44,160 --> 00:22:48,599
down in record time. When I got back, Nikki was

374
00:22:48,640 --> 00:22:52,319
still sleeping. I gathered my thoughts and I decided I

375
00:22:52,400 --> 00:22:56,200
wasn't saying anything about this, but I needed an escape plan.

376
00:22:57,680 --> 00:23:01,000
I cooked breakfast like nothing was wrong, but Nicky knew

377
00:23:01,079 --> 00:23:06,200
something was up. After breakfast, instead of shooting, I suggested

378
00:23:06,279 --> 00:23:08,480
we go into town and get something that I needed

379
00:23:08,519 --> 00:23:12,000
for dinner. We buzzed off and I went off to

380
00:23:12,079 --> 00:23:14,799
a payphone, and I came back with a story of

381
00:23:14,880 --> 00:23:17,920
a sick relative in the hospital and that I needed

382
00:23:17,920 --> 00:23:21,880
to head back. Well. He was bummed, but he understood.

383
00:23:22,480 --> 00:23:26,519
We packed up and left right after lunch. I never

384
00:23:26,599 --> 00:23:29,680
mentioned the pond or the beaver dam. I didn't want

385
00:23:29,720 --> 00:23:33,319
to go back and investigate. I never said anything about

386
00:23:33,319 --> 00:23:36,319
what I saw, and I never went back to that

387
00:23:36,559 --> 00:23:42,160
cabin again. A few days after getting back, Nicki and

388
00:23:42,240 --> 00:23:46,240
I talked and he apologized. He thought I wanted to

389
00:23:46,279 --> 00:23:49,759
get home because he was bugging me about the raccoons.

390
00:23:50,200 --> 00:23:53,000
A friend can always tell when a friend isn't right.

391
00:23:54,079 --> 00:23:58,440
We were good after that. During dear season, I would

392
00:23:58,480 --> 00:24:02,240
be asking Nicki for hunt stories, waiting to hopefully hear

393
00:24:02,279 --> 00:24:06,160
a story of a bigfoot sighting from a hunter. There

394
00:24:06,160 --> 00:24:09,960
were none. Instead, I was invited to get my license

395
00:24:10,039 --> 00:24:16,240
and join their hunting party. No thanks. In hindsight, in

396
00:24:16,279 --> 00:24:20,359
researching the creature, we've had an aggressive bigfoot living about

397
00:24:20,359 --> 00:24:24,079
two hundred miles north of my sighting in Whitehall Mountain

398
00:24:24,279 --> 00:24:28,759
near Lake George. Also, the one I saw, his side

399
00:24:28,759 --> 00:24:32,720
to side moving gesture looks somewhat playful, but it's a

400
00:24:32,759 --> 00:24:37,599
Semian act of agitation and aggression. So the bigfoot that

401
00:24:37,680 --> 00:24:41,119
I saw was annoyed. He wasn't swinging back and forth

402
00:24:41,160 --> 00:24:45,279
in playfulness. I think he was targeting and hunting the

403
00:24:45,319 --> 00:24:48,359
beaver that built the dam, and I was interfering with

404
00:24:48,480 --> 00:24:52,680
his hunt. I think the beaver chose that spot instead

405
00:24:52,680 --> 00:24:55,319
of the larger pond to avoid what was stalking him.

406
00:24:56,319 --> 00:24:59,119
I think the bigfoot I saw didn't growl or scream

407
00:24:59,119 --> 00:25:01,279
at me because it's since it was close to a

408
00:25:01,319 --> 00:25:04,880
meal of a beaver and its sounds might have signaled

409
00:25:04,920 --> 00:25:09,759
other creatures. I really don't know about that. When I

410
00:25:09,799 --> 00:25:12,119
heard the crack to the side on my hike up

411
00:25:12,160 --> 00:25:14,960
the mountain and passing the down, I think that was

412
00:25:15,000 --> 00:25:17,519
the bigfoot on the side woods trying to get rid

413
00:25:17,559 --> 00:25:21,079
of me. Maybe he was on the cabin porch that night.

414
00:25:21,519 --> 00:25:25,480
I'll never know, and we'll never tell. I will never

415
00:25:25,559 --> 00:25:28,799
go back to the woods alone and unarmed with anything

416
00:25:28,920 --> 00:25:33,319
less than a forty five. On at least three occasions

417
00:25:33,359 --> 00:25:36,839
since being married, this sighting has impacted me with a

418
00:25:36,880 --> 00:25:42,359
PTSD like night terror. I have had nightmares of a

419
00:25:42,400 --> 00:25:46,920
bigfoot stalking either me or my wife and kids. And

420
00:25:46,960 --> 00:25:50,680
this may sound insane, but it's true. I would make

421
00:25:50,720 --> 00:25:55,119
a growling animal attack noise, screaming at the bigfoot like

422
00:25:55,160 --> 00:25:57,359
an animal at the top of my lungs in a

423
00:25:57,440 --> 00:26:01,960
defensive posture, letting it know that I'm not choosing to flight,

424
00:26:02,440 --> 00:26:05,599
I'm choosing to fight, hoping that this will back the

425
00:26:05,640 --> 00:26:10,000
creature off. All of this was happening in my dreams,

426
00:26:10,039 --> 00:26:13,559
but my snarls and growls would increase in volume and

427
00:26:13,599 --> 00:26:17,000
grow until I would scream like a wild man, eventually

428
00:26:17,119 --> 00:26:20,200
scaring the crap out of my wife and She would

429
00:26:20,200 --> 00:26:22,839
shake me to snap me out of the dream. She

430
00:26:22,920 --> 00:26:27,279
thought I was turning into a wolfman in my growling antics.

431
00:26:28,200 --> 00:26:31,680
The last time this happened, I woke up the entire house,

432
00:26:32,000 --> 00:26:34,240
my wife and our six year old son and our

433
00:26:34,359 --> 00:26:38,079
nine year old daughter. We gave the kids a funny

434
00:26:38,160 --> 00:26:41,880
nightmare story, but my wife knows the real story. She

435
00:26:42,119 --> 00:26:44,799
encouraged me to share this as a form of therapy

436
00:26:44,920 --> 00:26:48,720
so she can sleep in peace without any wolfman dream visits.

437
00:26:49,759 --> 00:26:52,319
And I still live in the suburbs of the city,

438
00:26:53,039 --> 00:26:55,960
only now I'm the one who was scared by something

439
00:26:56,119 --> 00:27:00,519
that was actually very real. Thank you for the channel,

440
00:27:00,759 --> 00:27:03,200
and may God bless you for giving folks like me

441
00:27:03,240 --> 00:27:06,160
an anonymous outlet to get something off our minds.