Speaker 1: All right, I want to talk to you for a minute,
Speaker 1: and I need you to hang around and listen because
Speaker 1: this is important, very important. I'm not bragging, but I
Speaker 1: did get invited to do a Massy Oak properties podcast.
Speaker 1: The name of the podcast is A Fist Full of
Speaker 1: Dirt and it is hosted by a guy that I've
Speaker 1: watched on television and in videos, and just in the
Speaker 1: last year or so have seen some of his videos
Speaker 1: from old. His name is Ronnie cuz Strickland. And I
Speaker 1: got to drive down to West Point, Mississippi, where the
Speaker 1: headquarters of massioak is sit in their studio, and they
Speaker 1: asked me all kinds of questions about my podcast and
Speaker 1: all that stuff. You all know how I am. I
Speaker 1: don't really like talking about myself. I had so many
Speaker 1: questions for them, but I had to bite my tongue
Speaker 1: because it's their show. They wanted me to talk about
Speaker 1: the podcast, and so I did that. I'm going to
Speaker 1: put a link in the description for the Fistful of
Speaker 1: Dirt Halloween episode, which they uploaded yesterday it would have
Speaker 1: been October twenty ninth. It's called a Redneck Telling Monster Stories.
Speaker 1: It's a pretty good podcast. Not because I'm in it
Speaker 1: because these people really know how to put on a
Speaker 1: good podcast. There'll be a link that they're not on YouTube,
Speaker 1: they're out on the podcast networks, so they're on Apple, Spotify,
Speaker 1: all the podcast apps that you use out there. Just
Speaker 1: do a search for a fist full of dirt. You
Speaker 1: might want to put mossy oak behind that. It'll be
Speaker 1: right up there at the top. The episode I'm in
Speaker 1: is called a Redneck Telling Monster Stories. It's their first
Speaker 1: Halloween episode. They're uploading another Halloween episode to tomorrow or Friday.
Speaker 1: I'm not sure. I think it's Thursday the thirtieth or
Speaker 1: the Thursday the thirty first, actually on Halloween, and it
Speaker 1: should be a good one. But you all looked them up.
Speaker 1: Listen to their podcast. It's really good. One thing that
Speaker 1: happened when I walked into their studio first was I
Speaker 1: got to meet two really nice people. I got to
Speaker 1: meet Cuz Strickland. He's a legend, an absolute legend in
Speaker 1: hunting circles. Everybody knows who Cuz Strickland is. If you've
Speaker 1: ever watched a hunting show. If you don't remember his name,
Speaker 1: when you see his face, you'll remember it. And then
Speaker 1: I met his daughter, Lauren, and they're the producers of
Speaker 1: a fist full of Dirt podcasts. But he handed me
Speaker 1: a book, which I didn't say this when I sat
Speaker 1: down with him, but I had actually read it a
Speaker 1: few years ago. A buddy of mine had it sitting
Speaker 1: on his desk. I said, let me borrow that book,
Speaker 1: and I read the book. It's called Ain't Nothing but
Speaker 1: the Truth about Spring Turkey Hunting. According to cuz Now,
Speaker 1: this book is not a strategy type tactics kind of book.
Speaker 1: It's his commentary on turkey hunting and in modern culture,
Speaker 1: and it is full of unbelievably great stories. I don't
Speaker 1: know where to buy this book. I'm gonna check with
Speaker 1: them before I upload this podcast and see if it's
Speaker 1: on Amazon or wherever. But I called Lauren yesterday and
Speaker 1: I asked her if her dad wouldn't mind if I
Speaker 1: read a chapter out of this book, and she said,
Speaker 1: I think that'd be great. So that's what you're about
Speaker 1: to hear. So I wanted to announce that I'm on
Speaker 1: that podcast and I want you to stick around and
Speaker 1: listen to this story. It's one chapter out of Ain't
Speaker 1: Nothing but the Truth about Spring Turkey Hunting. According to
Speaker 1: Cudz Strickland, the title of the chapter is Hexes and
Speaker 1: Haints or Haints and Hexes. I thought it was fitting
Speaker 1: for this channel. Its close to Halloween, it's about superstitions,
Speaker 1: and I think you will enjoy it, So hang on
Speaker 1: and listen to that. I really appreciate it. Thanks, Hanks
Speaker 1: and Hexes. Most people will not admit in public, or
Speaker 1: even out loud, that they are superstitious. Some consider it
Speaker 1: a sign of a weak mind or lack of education.
Speaker 1: Well that's fine, but I say why I take chances.
Speaker 1: Baseball players as a group may be the most superstitious
Speaker 1: of all, but I think hunters would be a close second.
Speaker 1: I have always been deathly scared of snakes, but not
Speaker 1: too much else. I'm good to round most other things
Speaker 1: that can make folks uneasy, stuff like spiders and haunted
Speaker 1: houses and the dark and electricity. But you could still
Speaker 1: describe me as jumpy. Even though I'm not afraid of spiders,
Speaker 1: I don't pick them up and play with them, and
Speaker 1: I might jump if one land in my lap. It's
Speaker 1: the same with superstitions. I don't go asking for trouble.
Speaker 1: I don't pick up spiders. I don't throw my hat
Speaker 1: on the bed or look at a new moon over
Speaker 1: my left shoulder. For me, it's all about the odds.
Speaker 1: If I feel my odds are better if I don't
Speaker 1: step on a crack in the sidewalk, then I will
Speaker 1: step over the cracks. Now call me uneducated or weak
Speaker 1: mind at all you want. Most people find my superstitions
Speaker 1: funny or at best interesting, But for me, it's just
Speaker 1: part of my routine. I'm not trying to be different
Speaker 1: or make a statement of any kind. I'm just being careful.
Speaker 1: Back in the mid nineteen eighties, I was hunting outdoor
Speaker 1: writers out of my house in Natchez, Mississippi. My wife
Speaker 1: Pam and I, along with both of our girls, would
Speaker 1: bring in dozens of writers each year and hunt them
Speaker 1: around Natchez for primos and mascio in hopes of getting
Speaker 1: mentions or photos in hunting magazines. One of my favorite
Speaker 1: writers to visit our home was Nick Sisley. Nick and
Speaker 1: I hit it off really fast, even though he was
Speaker 1: a highly intelligent professional writer and a Pennsylvania Yankee who
Speaker 1: had traveled the world and seen and done way more
Speaker 1: than I had. By being a simple, laid back redneck
Speaker 1: from South Mississippi. Nick liked real people who hunted in
Speaker 1: real places, under real conditions and did it really hard,
Speaker 1: so we actually had lots in common. He didn't want
Speaker 1: some plush wine and cheese hunt where he didn't have
Speaker 1: to walk too far or wait too long, so hunting
Speaker 1: with me out of our house was right up his alley.
Speaker 1: On the first morning of next turkey hunt, we were
Speaker 1: running about ten minutes late leaving my house. I was
Speaker 1: heavy on the gas most of the way to our
Speaker 1: hunting ground and had made up for most of the
Speaker 1: ten minutes and felt good about being in our spot
Speaker 1: to listen for gobbles on time. And then it happened
Speaker 1: A damn black cat ran across the road right in
Speaker 1: front of us. There are a few actions you can
Speaker 1: take in this situation. For instance, you can pull over
Speaker 1: and wait for another vehicle to cross the path first.
Speaker 1: You can spit on your finger and put an X
Speaker 1: on the windshield dead center. You can turn your hat
Speaker 1: around and raise your feet off the floorboard and the
Speaker 1: speed across. But the fastest thing to do is to
Speaker 1: turn around and take another route. And since that was
Speaker 1: five in the morning, I knew the chances of another
Speaker 1: vehicle busting that path were slim. I could have turned
Speaker 1: my hat around and picked up my feet and ex
Speaker 1: the windshield, but I knew Nick would not do it,
Speaker 1: and it would not help if he refused, so I
Speaker 1: stopped and turned around. He was in shock that I
Speaker 1: would do that. I knew another gravel road that would
Speaker 1: not cost us much time, and it was my best option.
Speaker 1: It would have taken way too much time to explain
Speaker 1: to Nick all the options and possibilities we had to
Speaker 1: cancel out that cat's mojo, so I just do it
Speaker 1: in reverse and took off. I could tell he was
Speaker 1: pissed off a bit, because he didn't say a word
Speaker 1: to me until after his gun went off at five
Speaker 1: minutes after six, when he dispatched a big old gobbler.
Speaker 1: After the quick hunt, we talked and smiled about the
Speaker 1: black Cat episode, which I'm sure he thought was theater
Speaker 1: for him, but later realized it was indeed for his benefit.
Speaker 1: No theater was involved, just scientific preemptive tactics to keep
Speaker 1: luck on our side. Now, I'm sure there's not much
Speaker 1: sites involved in superstitions, but there is a lot of
Speaker 1: history that backs up at least the fact that people
Speaker 1: have been aware of them. For example, Friday the thirteenth
Speaker 1: has some very substantial meaning that dates back thousands of years.
Speaker 1: The Scandinavians believed the number thirteen was unlucky because of
Speaker 1: the twelve demic gods that were joined by the thirteenth,
Speaker 1: who was evil. It was also said that Crass was
Speaker 1: crucified on a Friday, and the number of people present
Speaker 1: at the Last Supper was thirteen, the thirteenth being Judas
Speaker 1: the Trader. If you don't believe things like that, then
Speaker 1: a lucky penny or a four leaf clover may not
Speaker 1: mean much to you. But I'll admit I do, especially
Speaker 1: when biblical examples are thrown into the mix. Now, I'm
Speaker 1: pretty sure superstitions are like being afraid of snakes. If
Speaker 1: you look for them like I do, then you'll find them.
Speaker 1: Maybe it's all in the mind, but I think the
Speaker 1: mind is indeed a powerful thing and can affect outcomes
Speaker 1: in many ways. I remember a few years back, while
Speaker 1: at Portland Landing near Camden, Alabama, we were scouting locations
Speaker 1: in September to hang tree stands for an upcoming mossy oakhunt.
Speaker 1: It was so hot you could hardly breathe, and we
Speaker 1: were covering lots of ground. I've heard the old saying
Speaker 1: that seeing an owl in the daylight was bad luck,
Speaker 1: but it never paid much attention to that one. The
Speaker 1: chances of seeing an owl in the middle of the
Speaker 1: day down south anyway are very slim. But on this day,
Speaker 1: while scouting acorn trees for sign, I actually saw two
Speaker 1: owls in trees and both were looking at me. I
Speaker 1: remember thinking that it was strange, but the old bad
Speaker 1: luck thing did not enter my mind. On one of
Speaker 1: the last spots we checked, I was walking across a
Speaker 1: freshly plowed food plot to look at a shady oak
Speaker 1: tree on the other side. One of the two guys
Speaker 1: with me jumped back and grunted, so my first reaction
Speaker 1: was to jump also, which I did. I looked back
Speaker 1: and saw a two foot long rattlesnake cooled up in
Speaker 1: a strike mode right where I had just stepped. The
Speaker 1: snake was covered in dirt, which explained why me, of
Speaker 1: all people, did not see him. The other fellow said,
Speaker 1: he struck your boot. By this time, I was getting
Speaker 1: flushed and feeling sick. Now I moved away and looked down,
Speaker 1: and sure enough, there was some type of liquid on
Speaker 1: the lower portion of the soul of my left boot.
Speaker 1: The snake was small, so I guess the glancing strike
Speaker 1: just hit the harder rubber on my boot, but it
Speaker 1: was enough to send me indoors with an ice pack
Speaker 1: on my neck for a while to try to calm down.
Speaker 1: Did seeing two owls in the broad daylight have anything
Speaker 1: to do with that? Damn right? It did. If I
Speaker 1: had been thinking and realized the owls were a sign,
Speaker 1: I would have gone from being an active member of
Speaker 1: the scouting party to taking more of a supervisory role
Speaker 1: and hung around the truck again. All this could be
Speaker 1: nothing more than chance or a combination of actions that
Speaker 1: result in where you end up at a certain time,
Speaker 1: but my list of examples of luck playing a part
Speaker 1: in an outcome are numerous. I was filming turkeys in
Speaker 1: South Dakota one spring and met this guy who some
Speaker 1: folks might call a jinx. I was not calling that
Speaker 1: because I don't want to say that word out loud,
Speaker 1: but this guy certainly had some of the qualifications worthy
Speaker 1: of that handle. If I remember right, his name was Frank.
Speaker 1: I was not hunting with Frank, but I did visit
Speaker 1: with him at night and some during the midday while
Speaker 1: eating lunch. And my first introduction to Frank came on
Speaker 1: the first morning of the hunt, when I ran into
Speaker 1: him outside the old house where we were staying. He
Speaker 1: was trying to fish his keys out of the cab
Speaker 1: of his truck, and he locked them inside and had
Speaker 1: the old bent clothes hangar in the window and was
Speaker 1: cussing like crazy. The next time I saw him was
Speaker 1: later that night, when he was asking if anyone had
Speaker 1: seen a shotgun. I assumed he found it later, but
Speaker 1: the thought came to me then that I better keep
Speaker 1: an eye on this guy. Before I go deeper into
Speaker 1: this encounter, let me state that all of this is true.
Speaker 1: That night, the people who owned the house cook supper,
Speaker 1: which turned out to be baked fish with some vegetables.
Speaker 1: Frank said he did not eat fish, and he rode
Speaker 1: into town and got a sandwich and chips from a
Speaker 1: convenience store. The next morning, I was up early gathering
Speaker 1: camera gear, and I heard a strange noise outside. Old
Speaker 1: Frank was bent over by his truck and was sure
Speaker 1: as hell not trying to get his keys this time.
Speaker 1: He was sick as hell. He told me from a
Speaker 1: distance that he thought the deli style roasted beef had
Speaker 1: given him food poisoning. I felt bad for old Frank,
Speaker 1: but I kept my distance just in case what he
Speaker 1: had was contagious. That evening, Frank was looking kind of puny,
Speaker 1: but was sitting up outside sharing some hunting tails with
Speaker 1: some of the other fellows around a small campfire. I
Speaker 1: listened for a while, and I heard some sad tales
Speaker 1: of close encounters and misses and getting lost and so on,
Speaker 1: and discovered he had never killed a long beard. Against
Speaker 1: my better judgment, I offered to go with him to
Speaker 1: see if I could up his odds of at least
Speaker 1: an encounter or two with my tube call. I explained
Speaker 1: the whole camera deal and what I needed him to do,
Speaker 1: and he perked up big time. The next morning, I
Speaker 1: went to Frank's room just to make sure he was
Speaker 1: good to go, and what I saw made my knees buckle.
Speaker 1: His hat was on the bed, and there were two
Speaker 1: knives with the blades crossed on the night stand. He
Speaker 1: was putting his left boot on first, and there was
Speaker 1: a cracked mirror in plain view in his shaving kit,
Speaker 1: and he was singing before breakfast. Just one of those
Speaker 1: things is enough to screw your hunt for the day.
Speaker 1: But he was a virtual buffet of bad mojo. I
Speaker 1: expected his head to spend around in puke pea soup
Speaker 1: at any minute. I started grabbing hats and knives and
Speaker 1: such and gave him a quick rundown on just what
Speaker 1: I could see and how it could affect his hunt,
Speaker 1: not to mention his day to day life. Well. Frank
Speaker 1: was shocked but listened while I made a few more
Speaker 1: adjustments in the room. Once I made him get his
Speaker 1: boots on correctly and checked him for other land. Once
Speaker 1: I made him get his boots on correctly and I
Speaker 1: checked him for other land minds, we headed to the
Speaker 1: woods and I told Frank to relax and just think
Speaker 1: positive thoughts and we would have a good day of hunting.
Speaker 1: Lord knows he was do one. Around ten am, after
Speaker 1: some far off gobbles and a couple of sightings, we
Speaker 1: had a gobbler responding and closing in fast. I had
Speaker 1: Frank set up in front of me, gun ready and
Speaker 1: still as a rock. The gobbler closed the distance, and
Speaker 1: just as he appeared a little to our left, my
Speaker 1: camera shut off. I knew it was a dead battery,
Speaker 1: but I had just put a fresh one in before
Speaker 1: we left camp. I thought about trying to reach into
Speaker 1: my vest to grab a backup, but I had tried
Speaker 1: this move the spring before on a hunt with my
Speaker 1: youngest daughter and had screwed up the whole deal. I
Speaker 1: told Frank to shoot, and he smacked the merry im
Speaker 1: upside the head, and the celebration was on. I felt
Speaker 1: worse about missing his reaction with the camera than I
Speaker 1: did missing the kill shot. He was fired up. On
Speaker 1: the ride back to camp, Frank quizmy on all the
Speaker 1: superstitions I knew, and he took notes as though he
Speaker 1: was going to be tested the next day. Now, looking back,
Speaker 1: I think the mysterious dead battery was a result of
Speaker 1: me touching too many bad things in Frank's room. I
Speaker 1: moved the mirror, took the hat off the bed, and
Speaker 1: uncrossed the knife blades. I am convinced some of his
Speaker 1: bad mojo got on me. And just so you'll know,
Speaker 1: whether you believe it or not, here are some things
Speaker 1: to avoid in the future. The order is of my choosing,
Speaker 1: beginning with the worst hat on the bed, black cat
Speaker 1: crossing your path, crossed, now walking under a lighter anything
Speaker 1: yellow spilled salt, singing an owl in the daylight, and
Speaker 1: hearing a rooster crow at night, singing before breakfast, putting
Speaker 1: your left boot on before the right, sitting on a table,
Speaker 1: passing someone on a staircase, and last cleaning out a
Speaker 1: fireplace and leaving no embers. Okay, thanks for listening to that.
Speaker 1: Now we're going to get on with our regularly scheduled regularly.
Speaker 1: Did I say that right? You know I live in Mississippi.
Speaker 1: We it's hard to say words that are longer than
Speaker 1: two syllables. I don't know why that is. I got.
Speaker 1: I got an email the other day from a lady.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna read that email to y'all. I want y'all
Speaker 1: to see how nasty people can be when you put
Speaker 1: yourself out there, like on the internet or in public view,
Speaker 1: how filthy and nasty people can be. Let me find
Speaker 1: this email all right here. It is here, It is here,
Speaker 1: it is Okay. I got this email back on October
Speaker 1: twenty seventh, just a few days ago. I want you
Speaker 1: all to listen to this. Your idiocy and ignorance about
Speaker 1: being a brother in Christ are bad enough, as are
Speaker 1: your like of beer, motorcycles and pit bulldogs, all three
Speaker 1: or garbage, and you're continuing to I won't say the
Speaker 1: word if up. How words should be said in your
Speaker 1: abuse of grammar are just as bad. Stop saying laying
Speaker 1: when you should be saying lying, and further for farther
Speaker 1: and there is there are theres at any time. I
Speaker 1: don't even know what that means. I am really beginning
Speaker 1: to wonder about your intelligence level. Any of people in
Speaker 1: Mississippi are smart, so don't be so don't so don't
Speaker 1: use being a Mississippian as an excuse to talk like
Speaker 1: a dumbass. And bipedal is pronounced by pedal, not by pedal.
Speaker 1: Ge damn it, get a brain, man, I'm sorry, excuse me.
Speaker 1: I got this email, and I get these. I don't
Speaker 1: get these often, but I bet I've gotten two or
Speaker 1: three dozen of these through the years. Normally I just
Speaker 1: delete them because there's something wrong with this person. I
Speaker 1: don't what makes these people so angry, So I responded with,
Speaker 1: I'm sorry that you think so poorly of me. I'm
Speaker 1: just having fun. You certainly don't have to watch the videos.
Speaker 1: I actually corrected some of her spelling in a first response,
Speaker 1: because she spelled a couple of words incorrectly, which you know,
Speaker 1: I thought would be a fine comeback. She responded with,
Speaker 1: something is nasty anyway. I don't know. I don't normally
Speaker 1: do this. I don't normally read these kind of emails,
Speaker 1: but I do get them, not very often, but I'll
Speaker 1: get a dozen a year. Let's let's say it that way.
Speaker 1: I'll get a dozen of those a year. But I
Speaker 1: am just having fun. I know I don't have good
Speaker 1: command of the English language, and I have trouble pronouncing
Speaker 1: some things because I'm just not used to pronouncing some things.
Speaker 1: And bipedal is by pedal. I don't give a crap
Speaker 1: what this lady says. Anybody you run into that says
Speaker 1: that word will generally, ninety nine percent of the time
Speaker 1: say by pedal. But if you like to say bipedal,
Speaker 1: you say by pedal, everybody will know what you mean.
Speaker 1: You know, she said, get a brain, man, I don't,
Speaker 1: you don't. I don't know why these people are so angry.
Speaker 1: I'm just having fun. I love these stories, and I
Speaker 1: want you all to enjoy them. All right, I'm gonna
Speaker 1: quit talking about that. I want to thank you for
Speaker 1: listening to cuz Strickland's that chapter out of his book.
Speaker 1: I want you to look up a fist full of Dirt,
Speaker 1: and I want you to listen to their podcast. It
Speaker 1: is a relaxing, good podcast. Couzin and Lauren are such
Speaker 1: good storytellers, and I think you'd love it and all
Speaker 1: the stories in this book that he wrote. I'm sure
Speaker 1: if you go back through their podcast for years, you'll
Speaker 1: hear these stories all over again, or you can buy
Speaker 1: the book. All right, enough of that, appreciate y'all clicking
Speaker 1: on the video. I've got five or six stories in
Speaker 1: this one. That's gonna be a long podcast, and I
Speaker 1: hope you all enjoy it. All Right, here we go.
Speaker 1: This could be a bigfoot creature. I'm not sure, but
Speaker 1: this is a great story. The writer says, Hello, Cam,
Speaker 1: this story may interest you because I know how much
Speaker 1: you love dogs. I've never seen a dog behave in
Speaker 1: this manner before or since this incident. It happened in
Speaker 1: the autumn of nineteen seventy one in East Texas and
Speaker 1: the river bottom land of the Trinity River. My family
Speaker 1: owns a ranch that raises cattle, but we used dogs
Speaker 1: to help us round up and pen the herds. We
Speaker 1: had at least three to six dogs specifically used for
Speaker 1: that purpose, and one or two dogs for security on
Speaker 1: the homestead, and throughout the years we've had the occasional
Speaker 1: hunting dog too, And as you can guess, our family
Speaker 1: well understands the behaviors and mannerisms of man's best friend.
Speaker 1: My father was good friends with a man named mister Jim,
Speaker 1: who has since passed away, and he was a gruff
Speaker 1: wiry man who loved to raccoon hunt. He was getting
Speaker 1: older and he needed someone to accompany him on the
Speaker 1: hunts for safety reasons. This wasn't a blood sport, but
Speaker 1: a side income and a love of hunting. He sold
Speaker 1: the pelps to one and the meat to local families.
Speaker 1: On many occasions, my dad took me and my sister
Speaker 1: with them on the outings. It was our job to
Speaker 1: kill the raccoons with a shot to the head so
Speaker 1: as not to destroy the pelt. Once the dogs treed
Speaker 1: the raccoons, their eyes shine from the flashlight would give
Speaker 1: away their location in a tree. The kill was done
Speaker 1: with a twenty two rifle with open sights and my
Speaker 1: dad holding a flashlight behind us, illuminating the gun barrel
Speaker 1: in the eyes of the raccoon. At the same time,
Speaker 1: us girls were competitive and we would try to get
Speaker 1: the kill shot in one attempt. We were pretty good
Speaker 1: at it, being only eleven and nine years old at
Speaker 1: that time. That night, mister Jim had brought his best dog, Bonnie,
Speaker 1: instead of the usual two or three that he would
Speaker 1: bring when we hunted. Bonnie had the traditional white, brown
Speaker 1: and black markings of a treeing walker hound, which is
Speaker 1: also known as a coon hound. We met mister Jim
Speaker 1: I'm at the entrance of the private property, and we
Speaker 1: drove into the pasture on a dirt road that hugged
Speaker 1: along a thick stand of timber on the left. A
Speaker 1: field spread out to the right about seventy yards wide
Speaker 1: and met the border of thick timber. Again, this field
Speaker 1: was long and narrow, the road continuing for about a
Speaker 1: half a mile and ending at a barn and cattle pins.
Speaker 1: We stopped and parked the vehicles approximately twenty yards from
Speaker 1: the gate. We got our gear out and mister Jim
Speaker 1: released Bonnie. She shot off like a bullet across the
Speaker 1: pasture and disappeared into the woods. Occasionally we could hear
Speaker 1: her sound off with some excited yelps. We waited quietly
Speaker 1: in the dark, following her movements and listening for her
Speaker 1: to stop and begin barking incessantly. This would be the
Speaker 1: signal that she had treed a raccoon, and then we
Speaker 1: would go find her. She was moving down the property
Speaker 1: toward the barn, all the while staying in the woods,
Speaker 1: and then everything got quiet. I remember waiting by our car,
Speaker 1: looking at the dark woods where Bonnie entered the timber,
Speaker 1: when a foreboding feeling came over me. And I had
Speaker 1: never felt that before. I was always excited to go
Speaker 1: raccoon hunting and never afraid of anything in the woods.
Speaker 1: But as we stood there waiting in silence, I heard
Speaker 1: a voice in my head say, we don't belong here.
Speaker 1: I promptly dismissed it, thinking it was just a weird
Speaker 1: thing to be feeling and thinking. Some time passed and
Speaker 1: we still had not heard from Bonnie, and then suddenly,
Speaker 1: in the darkness, we heard her running toward us. She
Speaker 1: burst out of the woods and ran straight to mister
Speaker 1: Jim's shaking and trying to get between the safety of
Speaker 1: his legs. She almost tripped him as she tried to
Speaker 1: cling onto him, looking up at him with these terrified eyes,
Speaker 1: without making a sound. I couldn't tell if she was
Speaker 1: warning him to hide or begging him to get out
Speaker 1: of there. We were all shocked, and we stood there
Speaker 1: staring at her until mister Jim abruptly called it a night.
Speaker 1: We're done, he said, and with that we began to
Speaker 1: load everything back into the trucks without argument. We all
Speaker 1: knew something had traumatized that poor dog, but we didn't
Speaker 1: know what. Could this night get any more weirder? Well,
Speaker 1: it sure did. Mister Jim loaded Bonnie on the truck
Speaker 1: and tied her up and said he wanted to go
Speaker 1: to the barn to look at some equipment. My dad
Speaker 1: followed behind him in our car, and when we pulled
Speaker 1: up at the barn, he told us girls to stay
Speaker 1: put and that they would be right back. When he
Speaker 1: got out of the car and walked a few steps,
Speaker 1: something came flying through the air and hit the car
Speaker 1: in ten and next to him. It was so big
Speaker 1: and loud that my dad ducked and covered his head.
Speaker 1: What was that? He shouted. We sat there frozen. We
Speaker 1: didn't see or hear anything. My father composed himself and
Speaker 1: said it must have been a bat. Well, it must
Speaker 1: have been the biggest bat in Texas because it almost
Speaker 1: snapped the antenna off. Dad mister Jim walked onto the
Speaker 1: barn and looked at some equipment that was illuminated by
Speaker 1: the car headlights. As my sister and I waited quietly,
Speaker 1: still disturb by the antenna incident. In Bonnie's behavior, that
Speaker 1: foreboding feeling came over me, and once again I heard
Speaker 1: the words we do not belong here in my head.
Speaker 1: I was relieved when my dad got back in the car.
Speaker 1: I didn't want to be there A minute longer. I
Speaker 1: got the point though, because we did not belong there,
Speaker 1: and she signs off. She put a name on this email.
Speaker 1: It's Raccoon Annie. I don't suspect she didn't say whether
Speaker 1: to use that name or not, So anyway, I thought
Speaker 1: it was such a cool name. I thought I'd just
Speaker 1: say it. But this is one of those stories where
Speaker 1: someone has a bit of a premonition or a feeling,
Speaker 1: or a sixth sense or a I guess that's all
Speaker 1: the words I can think of to call it. But
Speaker 1: then it's proven true by a dog that is probably
Speaker 1: hunted for years and knows the woods and it's not
Speaker 1: scared of anything, comes running out of the woods and
Speaker 1: hides behind its owner. Usually you turn some raccoon dogs out, man,
Speaker 1: they want to run all night long. You have to
Speaker 1: you have to drag them out of the woods to
Speaker 1: keep them to stop, to make them stop hunting. And
Speaker 1: this dog just comes out of nowhere and then something
Speaker 1: is thrown at them at the barn. I don't know
Speaker 1: what that was. This was a great story. It's one
Speaker 1: of those creepy, kind of subtle all the scary things
Speaker 1: or things that you can't see but you know are there.
Speaker 1: It was perfect, perfect story. Thank you Raccoon Annie for
Speaker 1: sending this. I loved it. This is really not an
Speaker 1: encounter story, I guess, but some strange experiences that I've had.
Speaker 1: We lived in Florida and we bought a mobile home
Speaker 1: and we put it on a rental piece of land.
Speaker 1: A little while after we moved in, I started feeling
Speaker 1: really creeped out. At one end of the trailer, there
Speaker 1: were two bedrooms in a bathroom, and right outside the bathroom,
Speaker 1: the carpet was always wet to me, but there were
Speaker 1: no water leaks. And when I asked my husband if
Speaker 1: he felt it too, he said, now it doesn't feel
Speaker 1: wet to me. That certainly didn't make me feel any better.
Speaker 1: I knew what I felt, and I knew it wasn't
Speaker 1: just in my head. The carpet was wet, and something
Speaker 1: strange was going on. But as it does, life goes on,
Speaker 1: and I learned to live a new normal of seeing
Speaker 1: the ghostly water leak and not letting it ruin my day.
Speaker 1: A few years later, we pulled up the carpet to
Speaker 1: put down wood flooring, and in that same spot, right
Speaker 1: where I felt the water, it was black and wet,
Speaker 1: and I pointed at it and I told my husband,
Speaker 1: see it's right there. But to my dismay, that man
Speaker 1: didn't see anything at all. It was the strangest thing.
Speaker 1: Some time later, after that floor was finished, that black
Speaker 1: spot bled through the wood floor. Each time I went
Speaker 1: or looked down the hallway, I could see it, and
Speaker 1: when I brought it up to my husband, he still
Speaker 1: didn't know what I was talking about. As frustrated as
Speaker 1: I was, I accepted that he didn't have whatever gift
Speaker 1: that I had suddenly developed, and I let it go,
Speaker 1: and again, as it does, life went on. Two years later,
Speaker 1: our daughter had a baby girl, and when I took
Speaker 1: her to the bedroom at the end of the hall,
Speaker 1: the baby would cry right at that spot. If I
Speaker 1: took her into the bedroom next to the spot, she
Speaker 1: would fuss in there too. When our granddaughter was two
Speaker 1: years old, she told her mom to tell the little
Speaker 1: girl playing in her kitchen outside to even alone. My
Speaker 1: daughter looked outside, trying to figure out who she was
Speaker 1: talking about, but even though she saw no one, my
Speaker 1: granddaughter insisted that there was someone there. Two days later,
Speaker 1: I was home alone, just me and my cat. We
Speaker 1: were in my bedroom with the door closed, when all
Speaker 1: of a sudden, we heard running coming toward the bedroom.
Speaker 1: A second later, something banged on the bedroom door. I
Speaker 1: know my cat heard it too, but he tendsed up
Speaker 1: and looked right at the door when it happened. I
Speaker 1: remember looking at him and saying, yeah, buddy, I heard
Speaker 1: it too. But unfortunately, we had experiences like that quite
Speaker 1: a bit. Another strange thing that started to happen was
Speaker 1: that I began to have a prophetic dream, as in
Speaker 1: I would dream about something only for it to come
Speaker 1: true in real life. And not long after, it started
Speaker 1: to happen so frequently that if I had a dream.
Speaker 1: We would all count the hours or days until it
Speaker 1: came true. And after a while, all of this happening repeatedly.
Speaker 1: I dreamt that my son was in an accident with
Speaker 1: his truck, and the sheriff's officer was telling me that
Speaker 1: he had died. Immediately the next day, I call my
Speaker 1: son and I told him about it. He knew all
Speaker 1: about my dreams coming true. And you better believe that
Speaker 1: that boy couldn't get rid of his truck fast enough.
Speaker 1: I have more experiences that I can share with you,
Speaker 1: but i'll stop for now. I don't know if the
Speaker 1: trailer we bought was haunted, but I sometimes wonder if
Speaker 1: something dreadful happened there and the spirit hasn't found a
Speaker 1: way out to let go yet. Or maybe I developed
Speaker 1: a gift later in life and seeing this, spirits have
Speaker 1: found their way to me, hoping someone will notice them
Speaker 1: who can be sure. Thank you for reading our stories,
Speaker 1: mine and the rest of your listeners. I can relate
Speaker 1: to many of them, and with plenty of the bizarre
Speaker 1: experiences under my belt, and I believe the world is
Speaker 1: much stranger than many people realize. It's a curious thing
Speaker 1: to sense things no one else can and to know
Speaker 1: we are surrounded by things that we cannot see. But
Speaker 1: even for those of us who have developed those involuntary gifts,
Speaker 1: as it does, life goes on. Oh that's cool. I
Speaker 1: mean that's scary. You know. I read these stories and
Speaker 1: sometimes I think, I mean, I like the story and
Speaker 1: I'm like, oh, that's a great story. But actually for
Speaker 1: this woman it was a traumatic story or traumatic set
Speaker 1: of events, especially dreaming that her son is going to die.
Speaker 1: Obviously he didn't die, but he got rid of the
Speaker 1: truck because apparently they thought the truck was the way,
Speaker 1: was that specific vehicle was the vehicle he was going
Speaker 1: to have an accident in, and they got rid of
Speaker 1: the truck. I don't know what to think about a
Speaker 1: lot of these things. I'll tell you this. I've had
Speaker 1: a dreamer too in my life of a totally off
Speaker 1: the wall traumatic event that one and I woke up.
Speaker 1: I felt so horrible after dreaming. You know what happened,
Speaker 1: And I swear to you those dreams came true. They
Speaker 1: didn't happen to me, and it was not any well,
Speaker 1: they did kind of happen to me, I guess, but
Speaker 1: it's not worth going into. But I've had two two
Speaker 1: of those dreams. And the first one I was in
Speaker 1: my thirties and I dreamed this terrible, heartbreaking thing and
Speaker 1: it eventually came true, probably if I remember right, within
Speaker 1: like a year it came true, and I connected it
Speaker 1: with the dream. How does that happen? I have no idea.
Speaker 1: The other one was a little more subtle, it wasn't
Speaker 1: quite as traumatic, but it's not happened since I'm sixty
Speaker 1: two now, and they both I think they both happened
Speaker 1: in my thirties or forties, and I haven't had anything
Speaker 1: like that since, Thank goodness. I don't want to know.
Speaker 1: I don't want to know what's coming. I don't know
Speaker 1: about y'all. But unless it's good, you know, unless I'm gonna,
Speaker 1: you know, land a really good, profitable job, or if
Speaker 1: I'm gonna one of my kids is going to be
Speaker 1: I don't know, you know, discover the cure for cancer
Speaker 1: or whatever it is. I don't really want to know
Speaker 1: if it's bad. It is a strange story. I've asked
Speaker 1: for these stories. This woman sent me the story and
Speaker 1: I read it. I've had it for a long time,
Speaker 1: and I'm glad I got to put it out now,
Speaker 1: so that was wonderful. Thank you, ma'am for sending it all. Right,
Speaker 1: here's a Bigfoot story. My name is Renee, and you
Speaker 1: can use my name if you'd like. I grew up
Speaker 1: in the nineteen seventies in a very small place called Pelican, Louisiana,
Speaker 1: at a time when you didn't have to lock your
Speaker 1: windows or doors. My family and I lived way back
Speaker 1: in the country. It was so far back that if
Speaker 1: someone was coming to your house, you knew it because
Speaker 1: there was only one way in and one way out.
Speaker 1: One day, my mom got a message to call her uncle. Heck,
Speaker 1: I never knew she had one because I'd never met him.
Speaker 1: The next day, we were told to pack our stuff
Speaker 1: because we were moving to Converse, Louisiana, about thirty miles
Speaker 1: from where we lived. We were moving in with Uncle
Speaker 1: Willy to take care of him. Uncle Willy was an
Speaker 1: older man who wore overalls and dip snuffed, and he
Speaker 1: smelled like an alcoholic. He would get drunk every night
Speaker 1: and sit outside and sing and peel on himself before
Speaker 1: going to bed and passing out. Oh my gosh. My
Speaker 1: mom and dad, on the other hand, were respectable folks.
Speaker 1: They loved to go fishing almost every day. It wasn't
Speaker 1: until years later that I understood why there were nine
Speaker 1: of us kids to feed and my dad was disabled
Speaker 1: from his hands being frozen to the handlebars on a
Speaker 1: motorcycle in Germany during World War II. One day, my
Speaker 1: mother wanted to find a creek and go fishing. Uncle
Speaker 1: Willy told her about a creek way back in the
Speaker 1: woods with a good road leading to it, because they
Speaker 1: had been drilling for oil down there. We loaded up
Speaker 1: our dark green station wagon, the green Machine as we
Speaker 1: called it. My older brothers drove our other vehicles, a
Speaker 1: green van, and we took off. It was a beautiful
Speaker 1: day and the sun was shining and the weather was warm,
Speaker 1: and we drove ten to fifteen miles down dirt roads,
Speaker 1: and by the time we got there we were all
Speaker 1: dusted out. We made it down this sandy, dusty road
Speaker 1: and got out and started down to the woods to
Speaker 1: the creek Uncle Willy had told us about. There was
Speaker 1: a tree lying across the creek and it had a
Speaker 1: nice cool place for us younger ones to play away
Speaker 1: from the water. I remember watching my dad and two
Speaker 1: of my brothers crossed the fallen tree across the creek
Speaker 1: when my dad suddenly put his hand in the air
Speaker 1: and made everyone stop. Hold up, boys, you boys, don't move,
Speaker 1: I heard him say. I remember the look on my
Speaker 1: mother's face as a foul smell crept into the area.
Speaker 1: What's that smell? She said, something's dead over here. Let's
Speaker 1: find it and bury it. And all of a sudden,
Speaker 1: my dad told my brothers to turn around and get
Speaker 1: over the tree and get back on the other side
Speaker 1: of the creek again, and he told the rest of
Speaker 1: us to get in the car. Then I saw a
Speaker 1: look on his face that I will never forget. My
Speaker 1: dad may not have been a big man, but he
Speaker 1: wasn't scared of anything. But right then that was the
Speaker 1: first time I had ever seen him scared. We did
Speaker 1: what he told us to do when we got back
Speaker 1: in the car, and I remember what my dad told
Speaker 1: my brothers when they got in the van. Don't stop
Speaker 1: until you get out of here. I don't care what
Speaker 1: you have to do. Go fast, he said, and then
Speaker 1: quickly got into the green machine with the rest of us.
Speaker 1: Buckle up, he said, And he never said that. Buckle up,
Speaker 1: roll up the windows, and lock the doors. You can
Speaker 1: believe that we did what Dad told us to do,
Speaker 1: and then he looked at my mom and said, Katie,
Speaker 1: floor it and do not stop. The whole time this
Speaker 1: was happening, we could hear a growl and something yelling
Speaker 1: from the creek, and when we got home, my dad
Speaker 1: was shaken up. We were all sitting in the living
Speaker 1: room wondering what it was that made him so scared.
Speaker 1: He didn't tell us everything right then, but he did
Speaker 1: tell us to look up every animal with five toes.
Speaker 1: Years later, my dad finally told us what he saw.
Speaker 1: When he and my brothers went across that tree to
Speaker 1: the other side of the water, he saw huge barefoot
Speaker 1: tracks and handprints, and while he and my brothers were
Speaker 1: looking at them, he had a funny feeling that something
Speaker 1: wasn't right. And when he looked up there, it was
Speaker 1: the meanest, ugliest creature he had ever seen. It had
Speaker 1: hair all over its body and big eyes and yellow teeth,
Speaker 1: and it looked mad. And he said it was watching
Speaker 1: us kids playing on the creek bank like we were
Speaker 1: going to be at next meal. That's when Dad made
Speaker 1: us get out of there. He said he didn't believe
Speaker 1: in bigfoot until that day. If you have a guessed already.
Speaker 1: That was the last time we went to the creek
Speaker 1: bank again. And it was the last time my parents
Speaker 1: took advice from Uncle Willy on where to go fishing.
Speaker 1: Oh man, that is terrifying. That is a scary story.
Speaker 1: And why would you take advice from uncle Willy? Anyway,
Speaker 1: When he sits out on the porch and drink, gets
Speaker 1: drunk and sings and peas on himself, that was a
Speaker 1: funny part of the story. But that was man. Can
Speaker 1: you imagine being a child. You don't see what your
Speaker 1: dad has seen, but he's telling us. He's getting everybody together.
Speaker 1: Get him in the car, get him down the road,
Speaker 1: get him out of the woods. You knew these folks
Speaker 1: had to know something was good. And it's great. The
Speaker 1: dad told him the story later on in life. This
Speaker 1: is really, really a good story. Thank you Renee for
Speaker 1: sending this. Okay, here's a story. Let me move the
Speaker 1: mic a little closer here. This is a story that's
Speaker 1: really different than a lot of the stories I do,
Speaker 1: but it is so good. I hope you all enjoy this.
Speaker 1: I sure enjoyed reading this. The man writes, I am
Speaker 1: writing to you because I believe people need to know
Speaker 1: there is much more to this life than the eye meets.
Speaker 1: My story is proof of that. In nineteen ninety five,
Speaker 1: I was living in Rhode Island with my lovely wife
Speaker 1: and our three year old son. My wife told me
Speaker 1: about a new non denominational church called Word of Life
Speaker 1: that was opening around the corner from us, and we
Speaker 1: decided to check it out. One afternoon. We took a
Speaker 1: walk over and we entered the nicely renovated lobby just
Speaker 1: as a woman came out of the church office. She
Speaker 1: and I looked at each other and we stopped. We
Speaker 1: had in our tracks. It was a friend of mine
Speaker 1: from art school named Annabelle, whom I had lost touch with.
Speaker 1: It turned out that she and her husband were starting
Speaker 1: the church, and her husband, Lance was the pastor. Well,
Speaker 1: Lance and I became fast friends. In addition to the
Speaker 1: Sunday service, Lance encouraged Tuesday night Bible studies and he
Speaker 1: offered a Thursday night service as well. Word of Life
Speaker 1: became our church home for several years. I grew in
Speaker 1: my faith and I started leading a Bible study group
Speaker 1: at a friend's house on Tuesday nights. A couple of
Speaker 1: families and singles attended the Bible study. People brought their children,
Speaker 1: who were all around the ages of three to five,
Speaker 1: except for one. Matt was ten or eleven. He was
Speaker 1: quiet and somewhat withdrawn. He's a good kid, just trying
Speaker 1: to make sense of life. One night, instead of leading
Speaker 1: the Bible study, I decided to sit and talk with him.
Speaker 1: Maybe because I was an only child raised by a
Speaker 1: single mother who often dragged me to boring events, I
Speaker 1: guess I felt a connection with him. He lit up
Speaker 1: when I asked him about his hobbies. He loved video
Speaker 1: games and electronics. He liked taking things apart and tinkering
Speaker 1: with stuff like broken radios. Later, when I shared the
Speaker 1: conversation with his mom, she told me that he played
Speaker 1: around with stuff but had never fixed a darn thing.
Speaker 1: I told her that she might want to encourage him.
Speaker 1: My mom let me draw as a kid, and it
Speaker 1: was a hobby that turned into a successful career. On
Speaker 1: the night of the encounter, I entered the church sanctuary
Speaker 1: for a Thursday night service. Lance was big on media
Speaker 1: even back then in nineteen ninety five, and he recorded
Speaker 1: every service with two video cameras. One was close to
Speaker 1: the platform on a tripod with a cameraman recording him
Speaker 1: in the message, and the other camera was on a
Speaker 1: tripod alcove at the back of the church to get
Speaker 1: a long shot. Lo and behold, Little Matt from the
Speaker 1: Bible Study was manning the rear camera, which made me smile.
Speaker 1: I guess his mother must have taken the advice and
Speaker 1: encouraged him. That night, one hundred people gathered near the
Speaker 1: front to be close to the platform so they could
Speaker 1: hear better. As we entered the church, my wife took
Speaker 1: our son and sat with everyone filing in, while I
Speaker 1: went to sit with Matt in the alcove. When the
Speaker 1: church band wrapped up, Lance took the podium and Little
Speaker 1: Matt sat to the left of the camera, beaming happily,
Speaker 1: ready to pop in another cassette when needed. I sat
Speaker 1: to the right of the camera and decided to stay there.
Speaker 1: As Lance started his message that night, he was preaching
Speaker 1: on demons in spiritual warfare and Smith Wigglesworth, the great
Speaker 1: evangelist who was known for his great faith, courage, and
Speaker 1: deliverance of people from demonic possession. As Lance spoke about
Speaker 1: Wiggleworth's encounters with the supernatural and the demonic powers, Matt
Speaker 1: and I were alone at the back of the church,
Speaker 1: with the exception of an usher seated in front of
Speaker 1: us across the aisle. Now, I'm not a person who
Speaker 1: frightens easily. I once had a huge Doberman charge me
Speaker 1: and run circles around me, jaws snapping, slinging, spit and
Speaker 1: barking and snarling until the owner took a sweet time
Speaker 1: to call them off. And while that was alarming, I
Speaker 1: could see it coming, and I could prepare myself. I
Speaker 1: can tell you there was no way to prepare for
Speaker 1: the bizarre encounter that was about to happen there. Matt
Speaker 1: and I were sitting quietly as Lance spoke, when a
Speaker 1: sudden and terrifying sound erupted behind us in the alcove.
Speaker 1: Within a second, an invisible beast let out two furious
Speaker 1: and hateful roars. The first was like it was gathering
Speaker 1: itself to launch, and the second was like it was
Speaker 1: on full on attack mode. I will never forget the
Speaker 1: spirit of the thing and the terrible sensation it projected.
Speaker 1: It was pure hatred, rage, evil, and savagery all in one.
Speaker 1: The sound was so loud and so real and so
Speaker 1: powerful that Mitt and I dove out of our seats
Speaker 1: and onto the floor to escape whatever it was that
Speaker 1: was coming at us. I was sure it was going
Speaker 1: to kill us, and as I hit the floor, I
Speaker 1: threw my arm up to fend it off, knowing its
Speaker 1: teeth and claws were coming and I was about to
Speaker 1: be mauled. I even remember thinking, say goodbye to your arm.
Speaker 1: When nothing tore into me. I hisstantly looked up, fully
Speaker 1: expecting to see some monstrous beast, but there was nothing there,
Speaker 1: and I lay there staring up at the blank wall,
Speaker 1: my arm in the air, my heart racing and my
Speaker 1: mind reeling. I looked over to see little Matt mirroring
Speaker 1: my position, staring at the back wall with his arm
Speaker 1: up in the error protectively too. Did you hear that?
Speaker 1: I whispered. He looked at me like it was the
Speaker 1: dumbest question he had ever heard. Yes, he gasped, His
Speaker 1: eyes were bulging. We sat up cautiously and looked around
Speaker 1: for some sign of this invisible, hateful beast when I
Speaker 1: noticed the usher scowling at us with the what the
Speaker 1: hell are you two doing? Look on his face. Apparently
Speaker 1: no one else heard it but me and Matt. As
Speaker 1: Lance continued the service, uninterrupted. We got back to our
Speaker 1: seats and awkwardly tried to compose ourselves. It wasn't only
Speaker 1: alarming because of the sound and the sensation it gave off,
Speaker 1: but also because it didn't make any sense where it
Speaker 1: came from. It would have had to come through the
Speaker 1: wall or manifest in a few inches of space right
Speaker 1: behind us. I saw the construction of that area, and
Speaker 1: there weren't any hidden doors or windows or vents or
Speaker 1: openings or something to sneak in. It was just the
Speaker 1: back of the alcove. I was impressed when later on
Speaker 1: Little Matt had the presence of mind to replace the
Speaker 1: tape when it ran out and the service ended, and
Speaker 1: I rushed to tell Lance what had happened. My wife
Speaker 1: and Annabelle listened as I tried to explain, and I
Speaker 1: could see they were all totally taken off guard and
Speaker 1: didn't know what to say. So I told Lance the
Speaker 1: camera was right there and it was running, and I'm
Speaker 1: sure it recorded the noise. He said, Unfortunately, the audio
Speaker 1: was off on that camera, but if it was loud enough,
Speaker 1: the mic on the camera up front may have picked
Speaker 1: it up. Sure enough, A couple of days later, Lance
Speaker 1: called me into his office. He had found the spot
Speaker 1: on the video where you could clearly hear the faint
Speaker 1: but distinct double roar in the background. He was amazed,
Speaker 1: and I was relief someone else heard it too, so
Speaker 1: I didn't feel like a raving lunatic. This experience was
Speaker 1: so intense that afterward whatever doubt I had in my
Speaker 1: mind about the existence of God and the angelic realm
Speaker 1: was totally dispelled. I'm convinced it was some sort of
Speaker 1: demonic manifestation, perhaps somehow provoked by Lance's message that night.
Speaker 1: It is by far the most bizarre thing that has
Speaker 1: ever happened to me, And as I said, I will
Speaker 1: never forget it. Thanks Cam and keep up the good work.
Speaker 1: And he signs off. That's like the second story of
Speaker 1: some people seeing and hearing things and other people not.
Speaker 1: I just picked these stories at random. I don't pick
Speaker 1: them because they have a specific theme unless I'm trying
Speaker 1: to do one with a specific theme. I just picked
Speaker 1: these at random and put them out there. And there's
Speaker 1: two stories in a row of people dealing with what
Speaker 1: they think could be some kind of paranormal or demonic thing.
Speaker 1: I'll tell you something about this writer, though I'm a
Speaker 1: read you note that he wrote. He says, and I
Speaker 1: appreciate him writing this. It says you are such an
Speaker 1: inspiration to me that I started my own little podcast.
Speaker 1: It's called The Brave Traveler Podcast. It's basically me reading
Speaker 1: a book I wrote years ago entitled Majesty, about two
Speaker 1: kids who go off in search of the White Horse
Speaker 1: of Revelation. Check it out when you get the chance.
Speaker 1: The Brave Traveler Podcast, Majesty Marathon. I'm going to find
Speaker 1: that and put a link in the description below so
Speaker 1: you guys can go check his podcast out. I assume
Speaker 1: it's on YouTube. Yeah, it's on YouTube, and you guys
Speaker 1: can listen to it. I got this story a long
Speaker 1: time ago. Here's the thing with these stories. There was
Speaker 1: a point in time, back in twenty to twenty twenty two,
Speaker 1: a two year period where I was getting ten or
Speaker 1: fifteen stories, oh more than that, twenty or thirty stories
Speaker 1: from viewers a week. Now I'm not getting I might
Speaker 1: get three or four a week. It's really gone down
Speaker 1: in volume. I still have all these stories in my
Speaker 1: inbox to pull up and read to you, and that's
Speaker 1: what I'm doing. But so his YouTube channel might be
Speaker 1: a couple of years old, so he might be interested
Speaker 1: to hear from you in the comments section and telling
Speaker 1: him that you heard his story on the Dixon on
Speaker 1: the Dixie Crypti Channel and that's why you came over.
Speaker 1: Otherwise you wouldn't have known about it. Anyway. This was
Speaker 1: a great story. I appreciate the writer sending it. Man,
Speaker 1: it's really kind of weird, kind of a weird story
Speaker 1: that happened in a church. I'm gonna have to think
Speaker 1: about this one. This is really interesting. Okay, thanks to
Speaker 1: the writer. Let's go to another one. I've been listening
Speaker 1: to your stories for a long time, and I've heard
Speaker 1: you say many times about being a skeptic of the
Speaker 1: existence of these entities. I'm actually glad this is the case.
Speaker 1: I was a skeptical person myself for a long time,
Speaker 1: and I always enjoyed listening to the stories. And that
Speaker 1: was that until one night six years ago. I had
Speaker 1: purchased three acres of land outside of Atlanta in a
Speaker 1: rural community. It was surrounded by thousands of acres of
Speaker 1: farms and forested areas. There were natural creeks and other
Speaker 1: waterways nearby, and it was full of deer and coyotes
Speaker 1: and bobcats and rabbits. I'd been pretty busy clearing the
Speaker 1: land and cutting down trees and burning the brush and
Speaker 1: left over debris. This was kind of a nightly routine.
Speaker 1: I would grab a cold beer and chair and throw
Speaker 1: a bit of diesel fuel on the pile and light
Speaker 1: it up, and I would sit there and just enjoy
Speaker 1: the end of the day with a nice fire and
Speaker 1: think about what I would do the next day. It
Speaker 1: went on like this for a while until the night
Speaker 1: I heard something on the other side of my fire.
Speaker 1: I couldn't see anything, so I grabbed a flashlight, lit
Speaker 1: up the area, and I caught some ice on the
Speaker 1: other side of another brush pile I had not burned yet.
Speaker 1: I threw a rock at the pile in the hopes
Speaker 1: of scaring off whatever it was, But to my surprise,
Speaker 1: whatever it was just stayed there. This spoke to me
Speaker 1: a little, and I figured it was better to call
Speaker 1: it an early night. This happened a few more times,
Speaker 1: to the conclusion of no surprise or excitement. It just
Speaker 1: left me with questions about what it was and why
Speaker 1: it wouldn't go away, even after I tossed rocks at it.
Speaker 1: I had a lot to do on the land still,
Speaker 1: and not too much time to spend thinking about that,
Speaker 1: so I just let it go. At the end of
Speaker 1: the summer, I needed to get my garage and closed
Speaker 1: in preparation for the coming winter, and I was working
Speaker 1: late hanging plywood and making all kinds of racket hammering
Speaker 1: and nailing it all down. I was up on the
Speaker 1: ladder doing my thing, just banging away at these nails,
Speaker 1: when all of a sudden, I heard a tree hit
Speaker 1: the ground behind me with a crash. I stopped for
Speaker 1: a second, and I knew it had not been raining
Speaker 1: or windy, and that this was a strange and random
Speaker 1: thing to happen. But I went back to work on
Speaker 1: those nails, pounding them down flush, and I continued working
Speaker 1: for another half an hour, and then bam and a
Speaker 1: crash and another tree came down in the same area.
Speaker 1: Now that got my attention. As my skin filled up
Speaker 1: with goosebumps, I got off that ladder and wrapped it
Speaker 1: up for the night. I knew something strange was going on,
Speaker 1: but I had no idea what it could be. I
Speaker 1: had always thrown out a coffee can or so of
Speaker 1: apple scent in corn to bring in the deer. They
Speaker 1: would usually move in just before dark, and I enjoyed
Speaker 1: watching them. Their visits became predictable to the point of
Speaker 1: several times a week. Early one morning, I took a
Speaker 1: visit to the Port of John when it was still
Speaker 1: dark out. I headed down the driveway and just as
Speaker 1: I got close to the door, I heard a short
Speaker 1: and deep growl. Well this caught me so off guard
Speaker 1: that it shook my entire stomach area and brought me
Speaker 1: to a standstill in midstep. The hair went up on
Speaker 1: my neck and a cold chill ran down my spine.
Speaker 1: I just stood there, frozen in place, thinking what the
Speaker 1: f was this? When nothing attacked me, I continued onto
Speaker 1: the toilet, I did my business, and made a beeline
Speaker 1: back inside afterward. Two days later, early Saturday morning, I
Speaker 1: couldn't sleep, so I stepped outside to have a cigarette,
Speaker 1: and while I was sitting there, I heard some noises
Speaker 1: coming from the far side of my garage. So I
Speaker 1: grabbed a flashlight and lit up the area, and I
Speaker 1: saw some deer backed up to my fence line. They
Speaker 1: were acting nervous and excited. Their heads were moving left
Speaker 1: to right, and their ears were moving this way and that.
Speaker 1: So I moved the light around and caught some eyeshine
Speaker 1: on the far side of them, and I decided to
Speaker 1: get a better look at what it could be. I
Speaker 1: moved around to the front of the garage and started
Speaker 1: panning the light around. The deer were still there, acting
Speaker 1: the same, and I couldn't figure out why they didn't
Speaker 1: just run off. As I moved the light, I noticed
Speaker 1: more eyes shine next to a large pine tree. This
Speaker 1: time it was just a single lie, but as I
Speaker 1: started at it, that thing moved its head until both
Speaker 1: eyes stared right at me in the light. The worst
Speaker 1: sinking feeling I ever felt filled my stomach, and I
Speaker 1: realized that not only had I gotten in the way
Speaker 1: of these things hunting the deer, but now its attention
Speaker 1: was on me. I made a straight shot back inside,
Speaker 1: and I locked the door, and I grabbed my handgun,
Speaker 1: and I made sure my shotgun was close too. I
Speaker 1: don't know if I slept the rest of the night
Speaker 1: or not, and the next morning, still nervous as I
Speaker 1: could be, I went out looking around for footprints or
Speaker 1: whatever I could find. I did find a track, but
Speaker 1: strangely only one. A short time later, I moved to Atlanta.
Speaker 1: I was a wreck for a long time after that experience.
Speaker 1: I guess that would be the PTSD that they talk about. Well,
Speaker 1: now time has passed and I've come to terms with it.
Speaker 1: If it wanted me, there wasn't much I could have
Speaker 1: done to stop it. So when you have an encounter,
Speaker 1: your view of the world changes and you begin to
Speaker 1: question everything you thought you knew. Your head is always
Speaker 1: on a pivot looking around, and you never relax again.
Speaker 1: My hope to those listening is that you don't ever
Speaker 1: have an encounter of your own. No matter how interesting
Speaker 1: some of these encounter stories may seem, it will unwind
Speaker 1: your view of reality and life won't ever be the
Speaker 1: same in the worst possible way. Well, that is true,
Speaker 1: you know. I think PTSD is at certain levels with
Speaker 1: certain you know, with different people. I would say this
Speaker 1: would bother me a little bit. We live out in
Speaker 1: the country and it's really dark. I could have had
Speaker 1: some you know, these street lights put up on a
Speaker 1: couple of polls around. I think it's like seven dollars
Speaker 1: a month to rent those from the utility company. But
Speaker 1: I kind of like it dark out here. I wear
Speaker 1: a head lamp everywhere I go when I'm out at
Speaker 1: night to lock the birds up, or I don't know,
Speaker 1: go find a dog or whatever, and I never see anything,
Speaker 1: never hear anything. It's always quiet, the stars are pretty.
Speaker 1: But I guess if these things are in your neighborhood
Speaker 1: or in your area, you could be in for some trouble.
Speaker 1: But I'll say this, I read a lot of these
Speaker 1: bigfoot type stories, and it's very rare that anyone gets
Speaker 1: attacked or even hurt. I mean, we have had stories
Speaker 1: where they the video I put up last week, the
Speaker 1: bigfoot was break trying to break in two people's houses.
Speaker 1: I mean, that would be terrifying, slapping on the pushing
Speaker 1: trees over on the house. But they never actually I
Speaker 1: guess if bigfoot are as smart and as strong and
Speaker 1: as stealthy as people make them out to be, which
Speaker 1: I don't doubt, why wouldn't they just come in and
Speaker 1: grab people out of the house and drag them out
Speaker 1: in the woods and kill them and eat them or
Speaker 1: whatever they do with people. I don't know. It's pretty
Speaker 1: rare that people get injured by these mythical creatures. Matter
Speaker 1: of fact, I don't remember. I think I remember one
Speaker 1: where a guy was killed. He was writing a story
Speaker 1: about his grandfather, but he didn't see it happen. He's
Speaker 1: just assuming it was a bigfoot. I don't know. The
Speaker 1: guy could have fell out of a tree stand, but
Speaker 1: I'm not doubting the story. I'm just saying there's always
Speaker 1: other explanations. But this story kind of creeped me out,
Speaker 1: kind of made kind of gave me goosebumps. It was
Speaker 1: kind of creepy. That's why I like these stories are scary.
Speaker 1: Thank you to the writer for sending it. It was awesome. Okay,
Speaker 1: thank you all for following along all the way to
Speaker 1: the end of the podcast. I really appreciate that, and
Speaker 1: we will see you on the next one. Thank you.