Speaker 1: Now one of your pudding. I got a string going
Speaker 1: on here, something just because my dog. Something killed your dog.
Speaker 1: My dog.
Speaker 2: We're flying through the air over the tree.
Speaker 1: I don't know how it did it, Okay, Damn, I'm
Speaker 1: really confused. All I saw was my dog coming over
Speaker 1: the fence and he was dead. And once you hit
Speaker 1: the ground like, I didn't see any cars. All I
Speaker 1: saw was my dog coming over the fence. Sat, what
Speaker 1: are you putting? We got some wonder or something crawling
Speaker 1: around out here? Did you see what it was?
Speaker 3: Or was it was?
Speaker 1: Standing enough? I'm out here looking through the window now
Speaker 1: and I don't see anything. I don't want to go outside, Jesus.
Speaker 4: Quice, you better.
Speaker 2: Hello, hit thebody out here?
Speaker 4: What quin?
Speaker 2: I'm out there?
Speaker 4: I thought of a.
Speaker 1: Bench about tick forty nine.
Speaker 4: I don't know.
Speaker 1: Easy an out there?
Speaker 4: Yeah, I'm walking right.
Speaker 1: Hey.
Speaker 2: If you caught my recent interview with Jerry on the
Speaker 2: episode titled The Booger's on South Mountain, you already know
Speaker 2: this man has been collecting encounter stories from that area
Speaker 2: for years, and let me tell you, we barely scratch
Speaker 2: the surface during that conversation. Jerry's got more stories than
Speaker 2: we could possibly cover in a single sit down, and
Speaker 2: every one of them comes straight from folks who've lived
Speaker 2: and hunted and wandered through those mountains their whole lives.
Speaker 2: So here's what's happening. Jerry was kind enough to give
Speaker 2: me permission to share stories from his TikTok channel JR. Millwood,
Speaker 2: which I'll link for you down in the show notes.
Speaker 1: Every Wednesday.
Speaker 2: For the next several weeks, I'll be bringing you in
Speaker 2: counter accounts from in and around the South Mountain area
Speaker 2: of North Carolina. These are the stories the locals tell,
Speaker 2: the ones passed down through families, the kind of accounts
Speaker 2: that make you think twice before heading into those woods
Speaker 2: after dark. And here's the part I'm really excited about.
Speaker 2: Jerry's invited me out to his research area in early December,
Speaker 2: So with any luck, I'll be boots on the ground
Speaker 2: out there soon and maybe, just maybe I'll get to
Speaker 2: experience these boogers for myself. We'll see what happens. All right,
Speaker 2: let's get into it. Here's the first installment of Encounter
Speaker 2: Stories from the South Mountains.
Speaker 1: All A, welcome everybody to the first episode of my
Speaker 1: series The Strange and Unexplained Phenomena of the South Mountains,
Speaker 1: North Carolina. I'm your host, researcher, and investigator and content creator.
Speaker 1: I appreciate all of you for joining us. Let's jump
Speaker 1: right into this episode that I have titled A Family's
Speaker 1: Night of Terror. Quick word about the South Mountains. The
Speaker 1: South Mountains is a mountain range and it covers roughly
Speaker 1: one hundred thousand acres. It is in the counties of
Speaker 1: North Carolina Cleveland County, Burke County, Rutherford County, and McDowell County.
Speaker 1: The surrounding areas of wilderness around the South Mountains in
Speaker 1: the periphery of the South Mountains easily encompasses another one
Speaker 1: hundred thousand acres of wilderness and rural farmland, creek bottoms,
Speaker 1: deep river bottoms. The terrain is beautiful, but in places
Speaker 1: it's unforgiving and very steep. It's Appalachian forest, and we
Speaker 1: are the first step to the Smoky Mountains. It's a
Speaker 1: paradise for a wilderness lovers, hikers, campers, hunters. The account
Speaker 1: shared to me by this family that I'm about to
Speaker 1: describe proofs that around here the paradise can be turned
Speaker 1: into a nightmare after the sun goes down. The story
Speaker 1: begins on the afternoon of July the twenty sixth of
Speaker 1: this year. A family who, by the way, that I
Speaker 1: know very well and I'm friends with them. They arrived
Speaker 1: here to camp in an undisclosed location. I will not
Speaker 1: disclose the exact location, although it is very near to
Speaker 1: where I sit right now as I share this account
Speaker 1: with you. Send in a creek bottom of a small
Speaker 1: stream that feeds one of the major creeks here in
Speaker 1: northwest Cleveland County, very isolated area, and I'm not going
Speaker 1: to reveal the family's identity either. I will respect their
Speaker 1: request for anonymity. But they arrived that beautiful July day.
Speaker 1: They began to set up camp in the secluded spot,
Speaker 1: and I joined them, and the sound of their children
Speaker 1: laughing and playing the forest. They were just having a
Speaker 1: great time. Mom, dad, twenty two year old son, nineteen
Speaker 1: year old son, nine year old son, and seven year
Speaker 1: old daughter. They got camp set up, just a wonderful day.
Speaker 1: As nighttime started approaching, they lit a campfire, and I
Speaker 1: bid them adieu and left them. I wanted them to
Speaker 1: enjoy their family time, and as they reported, they just
Speaker 1: sat relaxing and talking about whatever subject came up. The
Speaker 1: kids were playing. They had no idea the terror that
Speaker 1: they were on experience that night. As the fire died
Speaker 1: down and the conversation died down to a more hushed voice,
Speaker 1: they begin to hear sounds. Now, it's important to note
Speaker 1: that they were not unaware of the reputation of this area.
Speaker 1: They were very educated on things. The dad experienced outdoorsman
Speaker 1: and hunter, and he has hunted this area and he
Speaker 1: has heard sounds like I'm about to describe, So they
Speaker 1: were unexpected. But first they begin to hear the sound
Speaker 1: of a distant wood knock. Now, that is a well
Speaker 1: known sound in the world of cryptid investigation, and it's
Speaker 1: simply where something or somebody picks up a piece of
Speaker 1: wood and that strikes a tree very distinct soil. They
Speaker 1: heard that, and then from another location in the distance,
Speaker 1: they heard more wood knock and it stopped. And as
Speaker 1: they listen, then they begin to hear whoops. I will
Speaker 1: try to mimic that sound for you. It's a well
Speaker 1: known sound again in the area of crypt investigation, but
Speaker 1: it sounds something like this. I don't do it justice.
Speaker 1: It's far creepier in real life. And they begin to
Speaker 1: hear that and They report to me that they were
Speaker 1: put on guard, but they were excited that they got
Speaker 1: to hear this. They had to anticipated not getting to
Speaker 1: hear it because I told them the chances of it
Speaker 1: happening was probably pretty slim. So they were excited and
Speaker 1: they began to drift off to sleep. The fire had
Speaker 1: died down even more. Dad went out first and soon
Speaker 1: was sleeping. Mom was drifting off to sleep, but she
Speaker 1: was suddenly awakened by her children and they alerted her
Speaker 1: with some very ominous words, and they said, Mom, there's
Speaker 1: something in the woods. And so she came out of
Speaker 1: her tent to investigate, and suddenly there was a voice.
Speaker 1: This is very close to them, very close to their
Speaker 1: camp inside the woods, across the crew, but very close.
Speaker 1: And she reports to me that this language that she
Speaker 1: was hearing was not quote. It was not a human language.
Speaker 1: And Mom is a very educated and very intelligent person,
Speaker 1: and I believe her when she says that. But she
Speaker 1: said it was not a human language. She said she
Speaker 1: responded in a strange way with only things she thought
Speaker 1: of at the time, and said she said that she
Speaker 1: out loud, stated, I am sorry if we disturbed you,
Speaker 1: and we were making too much voice. And in reply
Speaker 1: to that, from a second direction, a different source, she
Speaker 1: heard a voice speaking this same strange language and it
Speaker 1: sounded angry. And then the first voice from the first
Speaker 1: location said something else in this strange language, and then
Speaker 1: that was it. They heard no more of the language anymore.
Speaker 1: They were up and they were all duard and alert,
Speaker 1: and they begin to hear walking near their camp in
Speaker 1: the woods. Now, the husband being an experienced outdoorsman at hunter,
Speaker 1: he reported to me that it was something walking on
Speaker 1: two feet. And then from a second direction they heard
Speaker 1: the same thing of something walking on two feet in
Speaker 1: the woods, not far from their camp at all. And
Speaker 1: then from a third direction behind them, and it became
Speaker 1: very obvious that they were surrounded. And they huddled and
Speaker 1: they were terrified. It's happened to me, and it is
Speaker 1: a terrifying feeling being in the dark woods being surrounded
Speaker 1: by something and you don't know what that something is.
Speaker 1: And they debated on what to do, so Dad decided
Speaker 1: that they would just stay in place, huddle together. They
Speaker 1: were armed, but he said that being armed didn't do
Speaker 1: anything to help alleviate the fear. And I understand that
Speaker 1: the walking from the three different directions continued for what
Speaker 1: seemed like an eternity, and they endured it. They wrote
Speaker 1: it tonight. They were afraid to try to leave. They
Speaker 1: were afraid to do anything other than sit there and watch.
Speaker 1: And they began packing up thirty minutes after they stopped
Speaker 1: hearing the sounds of these things walking around them, And
Speaker 1: that was well before son. By sun up, they were
Speaker 1: packed up and leaving the area. So he texted me
Speaker 1: and asked me to call him, and they told me
Speaker 1: the story over the phone that morning, and I heard
Speaker 1: the terror and the fright and their voices. I asked,
Speaker 1: did dis language sound like gibberish? And they said no.
Speaker 1: The mom said no, it sounded like some form of communication.
Speaker 1: It just wasn't human. So I sent them a link
Speaker 1: to what is called the Sierra Sounds. It was some
Speaker 1: tapes made in the nineteen seventies in the Sierra Nevada
Speaker 1: Mountains of California, and you can easily find that on
Speaker 1: TikTok or whatever platform. You can google it and you'll
Speaker 1: find these tapes and you'll get to hear them for
Speaker 1: their cell. The family still talks about it. They bring
Speaker 1: it up often, and I can tell that they are
Speaker 1: deeply impacted. But oddly enough, they have asked if they
Speaker 1: could come in camp again at a later date, and
Speaker 1: they've asked if I would come camp with him and
Speaker 1: maybe bring somebody else. But that's what happens when you
Speaker 1: have your own experience, you kind of get bit by
Speaker 1: the bug, so to speak, and you be in the
Speaker 1: wann Itchers. So that's their story, and I believe every
Speaker 1: word of it. This is a Dark Roads and red Eyes.
Speaker 1: In the summer of twenty twenty one, I was approached
Speaker 1: by an elderly gentleman who said that he had an
Speaker 1: encounter many years earlier that he wanted to tell me about,
Speaker 1: as a matter of fact, the words he uses to
Speaker 1: get off his chest. He said that he had not
Speaker 1: spoken of it since the night it happened, the night
Speaker 1: that he described to his father what happened. So we
Speaker 1: sat down and talked, and I listened to the man's stories.
Speaker 1: I saw his eyes glaze over as he went back
Speaker 1: in time. I would say that almost immediately that you
Speaker 1: could see a fear in his face. He said November
Speaker 1: nineteen fifty two, he was fourteen years old and was
Speaker 1: living on a small family farm northeastern Rotherford County, which
Speaker 1: was budded right up against the South Mountains. That at
Speaker 1: that particular night, he was getting ready to go to bed,
Speaker 1: and his father came to him and said that he
Speaker 1: needed him to go down to the shed and check
Speaker 1: the gas valve on the tractor, and said that it
Speaker 1: was about a quarter mile from the house down a
Speaker 1: little narrow dirt road, So that immediately he was frightened
Speaker 1: to do that. He was scared to do that because
Speaker 1: the local guidelines was you simply didn't go outside at
Speaker 1: night far away from the house unless you absolutely had to.
Speaker 1: But also the encounters and the stories that his grandfather
Speaker 1: had shared with and regarding a wampus, which was just
Speaker 1: an old fashioned word for a booger or a monster.
Speaker 1: The grandpa's stories will be included in a future episode.
Speaker 1: But he was also raised that if an elder asked
Speaker 1: you to do something, that you did it. So he
Speaker 1: pulled his overalls on and he grabbed a lantern, and
Speaker 1: he lit the lantern and he went out. He said,
Speaker 1: immediately upon going out of the house into the darkness
Speaker 1: that he felt just a sense of uneasiness that was
Speaker 1: very uncomfortable, just a bad feeling in general, and that
Speaker 1: he chalked it up to his mind trying to play
Speaker 1: games with him. That he was determined not to be
Speaker 1: a scaredy cat. He said, as he walked down that
Speaker 1: dirt road and he started this journey down to the
Speaker 1: shed in the barn area, that feeling increased, the bad feeling,
Speaker 1: a feeling that he was being watched by somebody. That
Speaker 1: it just got worse with every step that he took.
Speaker 1: He said, as he approached the gate to this area,
Speaker 1: that he heard off to his right an animal sound,
Speaker 1: and I asked him to describe it. He said it
Speaker 1: was an animal sound he had never heard before, that
Speaker 1: it sounded like a sick owl, only with a really
Speaker 1: deep voice. And I further pressed him, and he made
Speaker 1: the sound of it, and he continued his story. As
Speaker 1: he was trying to get the gate unfastened. He said
Speaker 1: he was already nearly to a state of panic and
Speaker 1: his hands were shaken as he was trying to get
Speaker 1: that chain unhooked. That he heard something the walk just
Speaker 1: behind the sh shed this barn area. He got through
Speaker 1: the gate and he got to the shed where the
Speaker 1: tractor was, and that he was immediately overcome by this
Speaker 1: foul stench. He said that he had smelled it a
Speaker 1: few times in the past, only it was very faint.
Speaker 1: But he said that night it was so strong that
Speaker 1: it was nauseating. And I asked him to describe the
Speaker 1: odor to me, and he said that it was smell
Speaker 1: like a pig that had been watering in a pig
Speaker 1: pen that was full of rotten bodies. That's pretty characteristic
Speaker 1: of that smell in terms of correlating it with what
Speaker 1: other people have reported. But that as he got to
Speaker 1: the tractor, he said, his lantern down and he looked
Speaker 1: under there for where that valve was, and as he
Speaker 1: began to move the valve with his hands were shaken.
Speaker 1: That he heard the walking again close to him, and
Speaker 1: that stench was even stronger. He managed to get that
Speaker 1: valve turned off. He said, it seemed like an eternity
Speaker 1: getting that valve to shut off, but he got it,
Speaker 1: he said, picked his lantern up, and he hurried back
Speaker 1: to the gate and he was trying to close the
Speaker 1: gate and heads shaken and he was fumbling that chain around.
Speaker 1: He finally got it latched, and he again heard the footsteps,
Speaker 1: only they seemed to be paralleling him. That it was
Speaker 1: just out of the reach of his lantern, out into
Speaker 1: the pasture beside that shed. He said that he turned
Speaker 1: around in before he knew that he was running, but
Speaker 1: the problem was he was carrying that lantern, and you
Speaker 1: can't see very far ahead of you carrying a lanner
Speaker 1: five six feet something like that. He forced himself to
Speaker 1: slow down. He said, the oddist thought popped in his mind.
Speaker 1: His daddy had this old plow setting beside the dirt road,
Speaker 1: and that he pictured running into that thing in the dark,
Speaker 1: and nobody wants to run into an iron plow with
Speaker 1: their shin. He said it forced himself to stop running
Speaker 1: and was at a quick pace, and that as he
Speaker 1: went up the dirt road, that plow came into view
Speaker 1: and one more step revealed that someone. He said he
Speaker 1: thought someone was standing behind the plow, but another step
Speaker 1: revealed in his words that it was not somebody, that
Speaker 1: it was something.
Speaker 2: Stay tuned for morseasquatch Oat to see.
Speaker 1: We'll be right back after these messages. And I asked
Speaker 1: him to describe it. He said it was very big,
Speaker 1: seven eight foot tall or even taller, and that it
Speaker 1: looked to be covered in a dark colored hair. He
Speaker 1: said except for the face. He said he could see
Speaker 1: the mouth, he could see the eyes, and he said
Speaker 1: it was the eyes that to this day, all these
Speaker 1: years later, he was fourteen years old in nineteen fifty two.
Speaker 1: Here it is the early two thousands, and he said
Speaker 1: that it still to this day makes him have lightmares
Speaker 1: to think about those eyes looking at him. I asked
Speaker 1: him to describe it. He said, as he held that
Speaker 1: lantern up, that those eyes shined a red and that
Speaker 1: it was just staring at him, and that it would
Speaker 1: blink and turn its head off to one side, turn
Speaker 1: it cock its head to the other side, and he
Speaker 1: said that in his words, he said he couldn't go anywhere.
Speaker 1: He felt paralyzed, And his exact words was that he
Speaker 1: said he felt like he was standing in two deep postholes.
Speaker 1: Said he couldn't yell, that he couldn't move a muscle,
Speaker 1: and that thing was just staring at him and moving
Speaker 1: its head a little bit. He said that it grunted,
Speaker 1: and I asked him to describe the grunt. He said
Speaker 1: it was a very deep version of something like you
Speaker 1: would hear out of a boarhog. But he said, finally
Speaker 1: he was opening his mouth. Nothing was coming out, and
Speaker 1: finally something came out. He was yelling for his father,
Speaker 1: and he finally was able to vocalize it. He said,
Speaker 1: by then he was shaking so bad that his heart
Speaker 1: was going to beat out of his chest, and that
Speaker 1: when he yelled that, the thing moved its head and
Speaker 1: grunted again and stared at him for another couple of seconds,
Speaker 1: and then just calmly turned and walked away. He said
Speaker 1: that had approached the fence just beside the dirt road.
Speaker 1: He said it stepped over the fence. He said, it
Speaker 1: didn't jump the fence. It didn't have to have any
Speaker 1: effort getting over the fence. He just stepped over the
Speaker 1: four foot fence, walked into the darkness, and as soon
Speaker 1: as he lost sight of it, he started running. He said,
Speaker 1: if I ran into something, I was just going to
Speaker 1: run into it. But he ran all the way back
Speaker 1: to the house, screaming for his father. His father come
Speaker 1: out the back door onto the back porch and met
Speaker 1: him at the steps and said, what's wrong. What's going on?
Speaker 1: He started telling me. The father said, lower your voice,
Speaker 1: and he began to tell his father what happened. His
Speaker 1: father said, I don't want you to ever forget this.
Speaker 1: He said, if you ever go back out at night again,
Speaker 1: you take my pistol. If I can't go with you,
Speaker 1: you take somebody. If somebody can't go with you, you
Speaker 1: have that pistol on you. But never forget this night.
Speaker 1: And he said that his father told him never speak
Speaker 1: of this again to anybody, and that his father also
Speaker 1: said that they would talk more about it later, and
Speaker 1: they did. I'll share that part of this in a
Speaker 1: future episode. But he said that this day that he
Speaker 1: has an nyightmares about those red eyes real quick. An
Speaker 1: elderly couple came to me in the winter of two
Speaker 1: thousand and in twenty two and said that they had
Speaker 1: an encounter that night before. This was a November of
Speaker 1: twenty twenty two, and that they was riding up a
Speaker 1: road here in this area north of kaser and as
Speaker 1: they went up a hill off to the right, he
Speaker 1: said he noticed this large person. He said, as he
Speaker 1: got closer, he said, it was way too large to
Speaker 1: be a man, and he said, I seen that it
Speaker 1: was covered in the hair. He thought have slowed down
Speaker 1: because I was afraid it was going to step out
Speaker 1: in front of him. As they approached it, it turned
Speaker 1: its head and looked at him, and when the lights
Speaker 1: hid its eyes that they shone red, and him and
Speaker 1: his wife were both shaken and said we'll never go
Speaker 1: out after dark again. Now, I want to take your
Speaker 1: attention back to an elderly friend of mine a couple
Speaker 1: of years ago related to me the story of when
Speaker 1: he was a kid in the late fifties, late one night,
Speaker 1: he got sent down to the barn slash tractor shed
Speaker 1: area by his father. He had a horrifying experience. I
Speaker 1: also explained that he said his grandfather and his father
Speaker 1: had told him later of some incidents in the experiences
Speaker 1: that they had. Tonight's is about experience that his grandfather
Speaker 1: and his great uncle, his grandfather's brother, an experience that
Speaker 1: they had. Matter of fact, it was the first experience
Speaker 1: that his grandfather ever spoke of to my friend. The
Speaker 1: year was late nineteen sixteen early nineteen seventeen. He said
Speaker 1: his grandfather was able to confidently mark that as the
Speaker 1: time frame for this incident because he said it was
Speaker 1: the winter prior to the United States being involved in
Speaker 1: World War One, so that would make it winter of
Speaker 1: nineteen sixteen or early in nineteen seventeen. Now, they lived
Speaker 1: on the same farm that my friend grew up on.
Speaker 1: That farm's been in that family for a number of generations.
Speaker 1: Back then, in nineteen sixteen early nineteen seventeen, the grandfather
Speaker 1: and his brother had scouted an area into the interior
Speaker 1: of the South Mountains that they determined will be a
Speaker 1: good area for rabbit hunting and trapping. It was a
Speaker 1: creek bottom area, but up on high ground there was
Speaker 1: an open field and there was an old homestead there
Speaker 1: and it was a small, little, small subsistence farm apparently,
Speaker 1: but it was a band, a cabin, a small barn,
Speaker 1: spring house, chicken coop, covered pig pen. But they had
Speaker 1: to secure permission. Now there's the ethos to this day
Speaker 1: in areas like this, especially in the mountains, in the fields,
Speaker 1: if you're gonna be on a man's property, you need
Speaker 1: to talk, or a woman's property, you need to talk
Speaker 1: with them in secure permission. Trouble was, the man did
Speaker 1: not live in the immediate area. He lived in town,
Speaker 1: and back then town that might as well be on
Speaker 1: the other side of the country. They had to wait
Speaker 1: until their dad had business in that town to go
Speaker 1: with him to find the men. And the families knew
Speaker 1: each other, and the man knew them, but they had
Speaker 1: to get his permission. So they came when the father
Speaker 1: had to go into town, and they went with them,
Speaker 1: and they found them in and explained what they were
Speaker 1: wanting to do. The grandfather said that the man was
Speaker 1: hesitant at first. He said, I know you boys, I
Speaker 1: know your trustworthy, I know your families, and you can
Speaker 1: do this. You can hunt and trap the area. But
Speaker 1: there's some rules you're gonna have to abide by. First
Speaker 1: and foremost, he said, do not sleep in any of
Speaker 1: the structures located on that old home. Now stop. My friend,
Speaker 1: when he was telling me this, I said, do you
Speaker 1: know why he said that? And sure enough, the man
Speaker 1: explained to him. He said that homestead now belongs to
Speaker 1: the dark Ones. Now, come to find out, the dark
Speaker 1: Ones is just another term for bigfoot nobby sasquatch booger,
Speaker 1: certainly one of the more ominous sounding terms I've ever
Speaker 1: heard for a cryptid. But he said the area belonged
Speaker 1: to the dark Ones. Now. Secondly, he said, if you
Speaker 1: kill any rabbit in the area, leave some rabbit on
Speaker 1: the porch of the old cabin. They didn't ask any questions.
Speaker 1: They agreed and then begin to plan their two or
Speaker 1: three night trip into the interior. They asked their father
Speaker 1: about it. They were teenagers, early teenagers. The father said
Speaker 1: that interestingly enough, that they couldn't take any of the
Speaker 1: hunting dogs, and they couldn't take a mule or donkey
Speaker 1: as a pack animal, because he said, they will get
Speaker 1: away from you and you will lose them. Too many
Speaker 1: animals that has been lost in there. We'll elaborate on
Speaker 1: that more in a future episode. And he said, you
Speaker 1: boys are absolutely at no point to be split up,
Speaker 1: and you're not ever to be without your shotgun, and
Speaker 1: you're to take pistols with you. And they agreed. So
Speaker 1: the morning came and they left it sun up for
Speaker 1: the roughly half day's journey into the interior to get
Speaker 1: to this area. They arrived in the early afternoon and
Speaker 1: they first set up camp in the woods down below
Speaker 1: this open field. They had enough daylight left that they
Speaker 1: decided to go out and do some squirrel hunting and
Speaker 1: along the way set some traps and they did so.
Speaker 1: They had some pretty successful hunting. They got back to camp,
Speaker 1: had a bite to eat, son went down and they
Speaker 1: called it a night. But at some point in the night.
Speaker 1: The grandfather report that they were awakened by the sound
Speaker 1: of what he thought sounded like the sound of a
Speaker 1: heavy door slamming repeated, and that went on for a while,
Speaker 1: and to be followed by, in his words, according to
Speaker 1: my friend, it's an all manner of squaling broke out.
Speaker 1: Now squaling is just a Southern word for hollering and
Speaker 1: yelling in Norway's And that went on into the early
Speaker 1: hours of the morning and cost them the better part
Speaker 1: of a good night's sleep, but it finally stopped sun up.
Speaker 1: The next morning, they built a fire, and they went
Speaker 1: out and did some squirrel hunting, and they came back
Speaker 1: ate some breakfast, and they started checking their traps, and
Speaker 1: they were found that they were very successful, that they
Speaker 1: had done very well into trapping. They reset some of
Speaker 1: the traps, but also they decided to relocate some of
Speaker 1: the traps on the higher ground in the periphery around
Speaker 1: that open field where the old homestead was. They took
Speaker 1: the traps up there, and along the way they did
Speaker 1: some rabbit hunting and was fairly successful of that too.
Speaker 1: They had plenty of daylight left, so they decided to
Speaker 1: investigate the buildings the old structures there at the old homestead,
Speaker 1: and a grandfather of arch that the cabin door was open,
Speaker 1: and that there appeared to be some kind of a
Speaker 1: nest in there, that there were small branches, pine boughs,
Speaker 1: leaves and that type of thing shoved up over into
Speaker 1: the corner of the cabin, and that there was a
Speaker 1: bit of an odd smell my friends, that he didn't
Speaker 1: elaborate best of his memory. They never went past the
Speaker 1: threshold of the cabin. I don't expect I would have either.
Speaker 1: But as they turned around, was getting ready to start
Speaker 1: heading back to camp from the woodline, from the woods
Speaker 1: on the periphery of this open field, the grandfather said,
Speaker 1: and this is the oddest vocalization I've ever heard described.
Speaker 1: He said that it sounds like something in the woods
Speaker 1: in a deep, gravelly voice was saying hob hob and
Speaker 1: would grunt, hobb and would grunt, And that it stopped.
Speaker 1: They had it on back to camp, I'm sure, discussing
Speaker 1: what in the world could that noise have been. They
Speaker 1: got back to camp and ate some supper, and before
Speaker 1: the sun was eating down, it all started more of
Speaker 1: this slamming sound. I wonder if that was WOODKNOCKX. I
Speaker 1: don't know, I hypothesized, but the howling he described, howling
Speaker 1: and whooping, it was closer and closer, it seemed finally
Speaker 1: to the point that in the near distance they could
Speaker 1: hear from multiple directions the sound of things were running
Speaker 1: in the woods. The grandfather said, it just sounded like
Speaker 1: somebody was running through the woods, but in several places
Speaker 1: around him, and that they would stop and more of
Speaker 1: the yelling would continue, and that they even heard more
Speaker 1: of this weird sounding hub hub with the grunts, and
Speaker 1: it was getting closer and closer to them. The sun
Speaker 1: was almost down. They didn't know what to do. We're
Speaker 1: gonna pick up from here in part two. Part one
Speaker 1: ended on a cliff finger. These two young teenage boys
Speaker 1: were in the deep wilderness. They were in the woods,
Speaker 1: and they were downhill from high ground and high ground
Speaker 1: there was an open field, and in that open field
Speaker 1: was an old homestead. They had secured permission from the
Speaker 1: property owner to hunt in trap around this abandoned homestead.
Speaker 1: The property owner had told him that his request were
Speaker 1: that they were not to sleep in any of the
Speaker 1: structures because the homestead belonged to the dark ones. You know,
Speaker 1: that is a term, just another term for a knobby
Speaker 1: or sasquatch or bigfoot or booger. And his second request
Speaker 1: was that if they killed any rabbits, that they were
Speaker 1: to leave some of the rabbits on the porch of
Speaker 1: the old cabin. The boys were in their camp. Something
Speaker 1: they visited the camp earlier in the day at rummage
Speaker 1: through some things, and they had lost all the traps
Speaker 1: they had previously set, but there was one trap that
Speaker 1: was brought back by someone or something. It was mangled
Speaker 1: and bent, and it was put in their camp. But
Speaker 1: they were being approached from up on high ground from
Speaker 1: the direction of this old homestead that was yelling, as
Speaker 1: the grandfather said, there was time than his account, squalling,
Speaker 1: which is just an old word for hollering and screaming
Speaker 1: and yelling. But also this strange and always the grandfather
Speaker 1: he kept coming up in his account over and over
Speaker 1: this strange voice, very deep voice, and this strange sound
Speaker 1: of hob hob hobb over and over throughout the night.
Speaker 1: And also the strange sound of what he said sounded
Speaker 1: like a door slamming, which occurred several times during their encounter.
Speaker 1: But they were in their camp. They were being approach
Speaker 1: from up on high ground. To make matters worse, on
Speaker 1: both their left and the right, they could hear someone
Speaker 1: or some things running through the woods closing in on them,
Speaker 1: and they had to think quickly. It wasn't an attractive
Speaker 1: option to stay in camp and try to fight it out.
Speaker 1: They didn't know what they were up against, but they
Speaker 1: knew that whatever it was intended them horror. But at
Speaker 1: the same time, it was late in the day and
Speaker 1: then how much daylight left in the fallt of plunging
Speaker 1: headlong into a deep, dark creek bottom because they had
Speaker 1: hours and hours to go to get back home. Remember
Speaker 1: it was a half a day's height to get there
Speaker 1: during the daytime. But at some point, I spect the
Speaker 1: moment of decision came, probably spurred on by fear and
Speaker 1: sheer necessity and not being overrun, not being attacked. They
Speaker 1: grabbed a couple of sacks. They had the shotguns that
Speaker 1: they were on with pistols. They left home armed in
Speaker 1: such a manner at the request of their father, and
Speaker 1: they fled downhill in the direction whilce they originally came
Speaker 1: when they came into the area to camp, the direction
Speaker 1: going back home. The grandfather said, they got down into
Speaker 1: the creek bottom, and interestingly enough, he added that during
Speaker 1: all of this, while they were running, he only turned
Speaker 1: around and looked back one time, and it was about
Speaker 1: the time they reached the creek bottom and they were
Speaker 1: running along the creek, he stopped to turn around and look,
Speaker 1: and then when he turned back around to start running
Speaker 1: in they're standing in front of them, and his words,
Speaker 1: was a big booger. Now. He described it as being large,
Speaker 1: very large. Harry looked kind of like a man in
Speaker 1: the face, but had a mortal pointed head covered in
Speaker 1: the hair, and that its hair was gray. That it
Speaker 1: just stood there looking at him. The brothers had stopped,
Speaker 1: I'm sure out of bewilderment, and shot, but also they
Speaker 1: couldn't go back the way they came without wanting the brother.
Speaker 1: His brother fired a shotgun blast into the air. The
Speaker 1: grandfather said that this creature didn't so much as flinch.
Speaker 1: That his brother fired another blast into the air, and
Speaker 1: as his brother was reloading, and his brother would later
Speaker 1: telling the next two shotgun blasts was going to be
Speaker 1: at the creature, but that the creature made a face
Speaker 1: at him, in the grandfather's word, made a face at
Speaker 1: him and turned around and walked off. Now, during all
Speaker 1: of this encounter, which I'm sure lasted seconds thirty seconds,
Speaker 1: of men had at the most all of the noise
Speaker 1: behind him had stopped the sound of their pursuers, had stopped.
Speaker 1: The yelling and the squalling and the whooping, and all
Speaker 1: of that had stopped.
Speaker 2: And stay tuned for more sasquatch out to see women
Speaker 2: right back after these messages.
Speaker 1: But the moment that this thing got out of sight,
Speaker 1: grandfather said that it all started back up again. They
Speaker 1: could hear the hollering and the yelling and that strange
Speaker 1: noise during this whole ordeal, he would hear it ob
Speaker 1: and they began running almost completely out of daylight, and
Speaker 1: soon they were out of daylight in complete darkness. The
Speaker 1: foliage in the creek bottoms of the Appalachian Mountains and
Speaker 1: the hills is thick even in the wintertime, bouncing off
Speaker 1: of trees and sheer panic. And for hours and hours
Speaker 1: these two young boys ran for their lives. And the
Speaker 1: grandfather said that it was strange, but sometimes it would
Speaker 1: sound like the pursuers were back and off. They could
Speaker 1: still hear them. They were still carrying on, but they
Speaker 1: would back off, and the moment that him and his
Speaker 1: brother would stop and maybe stop running just a walk
Speaker 1: to catch their breath, that their pursuers would gain the
Speaker 1: grounds on real quickly. Maybe they were playing cat and
Speaker 1: mouse with the boys. I don't know. That this went
Speaker 1: on into the night, and they finally got out of
Speaker 1: that particular creek bottom had crossed through some woods, and
Speaker 1: finally they came to the field, and that was the
Speaker 1: field was the last thing between them and their home.
Speaker 1: They ran into and got about halfway into the field,
Speaker 1: and all the sound behind them stopped, and that all
Speaker 1: was quiet, and then they both just stopped and looked around,
Speaker 1: and they collapsed onto the ground and laid there for
Speaker 1: an indeterminate period of time. I was here catching their breath,
Speaker 1: just scratched up their clothes, torn exhausted mentally and physically
Speaker 1: shaken up. And they finally got themselves together and got
Speaker 1: up and made the walk the last stretch to get
Speaker 1: to their house. They stopped, and grandfather said they sat
Speaker 1: down from in and on the stone steps of the porch,
Speaker 1: and then his brother simply said, we shouldn't tell anybody
Speaker 1: about this except for Daddy. And that's the way that
Speaker 1: it would remain for you years and years until this man,
Speaker 1: the one I keep referring to as the grandfather, told
Speaker 1: my friend, the elderly man that I met a couple
Speaker 1: of years ago, told him later in life about this encounter,
Speaker 1: as well as some others. They got up to go
Speaker 1: in the house, and just as they were about to
Speaker 1: open the door, all of it erupted again, way back
Speaker 1: at that wood larn. Grandfather said that it reached the
Speaker 1: pitch they had previously reached with the hooping in the highland.
Speaker 1: Did it reminded him of the sound a pack of
Speaker 1: dogs or pack of wolves would make after they had
Speaker 1: made a kill, and they were celebrating. They went into
Speaker 1: the house and closed the door, and that that went
Speaker 1: on for a number of minutes and finally stopped. They
Speaker 1: went to bed and got up the next morning, and
Speaker 1: there were questions. Grandfather said, Daddy took him outside and
Speaker 1: talked to him, and that they told their dad the
Speaker 1: whole story. When the dead said you'll not go back
Speaker 1: into that area, None of us will, the grandfather remarked.
Speaker 1: He said, all of these years, I keep wondering were
Speaker 1: they celebrating that they had chased us out of the
Speaker 1: woods or was that their final warning that we wasn't
Speaker 1: welcome to come back there? And I only maybe a
Speaker 1: little of both. So I've got a couple of other
Speaker 1: accounts that this grandfather had shared with my friends about
Speaker 1: years ago, and I also have one account that my
Speaker 1: friend's father had shared with him, and I'll cover those
Speaker 1: in later episodes. But this particular area in question is
Speaker 1: apparently a hot spot. I'm going to share with you
Speaker 1: the experience of two men dealt with something on a
Speaker 1: cold November night that changed their outlook on a number
Speaker 1: of things. A uncle and nephew duo. I'm not using
Speaker 1: the real names here, but we'll start off with uncle Jeff.
Speaker 1: Uncle Jeff lives in this area here south of the
Speaker 1: South Mountains mountain chain, just a few miles from the
Speaker 1: southern border of the state park. The country boy outdoorsman, hunter, fisher,
Speaker 1: camp or hiker, that kind of thing. And then his
Speaker 1: nephew Jake, who lives about an hour east of here. Now,
Speaker 1: there was a certain period of time that young Jake
Speaker 1: would travel up here on Thursdays to spend time with
Speaker 1: his uncle, and on those Thursdays they would attend the
Speaker 1: local bluegrass church, which is a regular church. They just
Speaker 1: do bluegrass music. They don't have a piano. They got
Speaker 1: a banger. They got to get to our doghouse base
Speaker 1: a man on a fiddle, a doughbro. But Jeff and
Speaker 1: his nephew, Jake, had that in common. They were both
Speaker 1: bluegrass musicians. Jeff's a bluegrass vocalists. They were both heavily
Speaker 1: in the bluegrass so they had that link and they
Speaker 1: had a really good relationship for an uncle and a nephew.
Speaker 1: And then after each service, Jake would follow his uncle
Speaker 1: home Indians stay another couple hours, sometimes on up into
Speaker 1: the night, just hanging around, maybe picking cutting up, talking
Speaker 1: that kind of thing. But on one particular cold November
Speaker 1: night in tw twenty eighteen, things happened as I described.
Speaker 1: They went to the service, Jake followed his uncle back
Speaker 1: to the house and they spent some time together and
Speaker 1: a little after eleven o'clock Jake said, I'm going to
Speaker 1: have to go. Uncle Jeff walked him to the door.
Speaker 1: They said their goodbyes, and Jeff started the process of
Speaker 1: getting ready for bed. He went to plug his phone
Speaker 1: up to charge it in at ranked it was his
Speaker 1: nephew who in a very frightened and anxious voice simply said,
Speaker 1: I need you to get out here right now, and
Speaker 1: he hung up. Jeff had fortunately not shed his boots yet.
Speaker 1: He grabbed a coat and he got outside, not having
Speaker 1: a clue what to expect, and he found his nephew
Speaker 1: to simply be standing over in the yard, which is
Speaker 1: on high ground. And he walked up to him and said,
Speaker 1: what's going on? And his nephew said, pointed across the way,
Speaker 1: and he said, listen, something is over there. Sure enough,
Speaker 1: in a few seconds, Jeff heard the distinct sound of
Speaker 1: something walking in those woods across the way from them.
Speaker 1: Now they were on high ground, and then that went
Speaker 1: down to a little country road that's a dead end road,
Speaker 1: and then a fence, and then about ten yards past
Speaker 1: that fence was the woodline. And this woodline was the
Speaker 1: starting area of a higher or what in other parts
Speaker 1: of the country you might call it a drawl or
Speaker 1: a valley, but it was the starting point of a
Speaker 1: hollow that was very deep and run all the way
Speaker 1: to a major creek here in northern Cleveland County called
Speaker 1: Wards Creek. So they listened, and they kept hearing the
Speaker 1: sound of something moving, and it was clear to Jeff
Speaker 1: that it was something walking on two feet. He made
Speaker 1: a mental note at the time that it was heavy footed,
Speaker 1: that it seemed to be walking slow and deliberately, and
Speaker 1: all the while getting closer and closer to them, And
Speaker 1: he told Jake, he said, I've got to run inside
Speaker 1: and get my spotlight. And he left Jake there for
Speaker 1: just a couple of minutes, and he run in and
Speaker 1: found a spotlight, came back outside, and the sound of
Speaker 1: the footfalls continued, and he began to spotlight those woods. Now,
Speaker 1: keep in mind, though this is November when this happened,
Speaker 1: and the leaves were off the trees, it's still so
Speaker 1: thick in some of these parts of these woods, with
Speaker 1: the big trees, medium trees, saplings, the undergrowth, you can't
Speaker 1: see far into them at night, even with the flashlight.
Speaker 1: So he just continued to scan with spotlight, trying to
Speaker 1: hone in on the source of the sound. It had
Speaker 1: stopped getting closer, but it had not stopped. It sounded
Speaker 1: as though it was pacing back and forth just inside
Speaker 1: the woodline. And as he spotlighted, he stopped because he
Speaker 1: thought he saw movement, and he concentrated any focus and
Speaker 1: was trying to figure out what, if anything, he was
Speaker 1: looking at, and then without warning, there was this angry
Speaker 1: sounding guttural, low based yell or shout, followed by what
Speaker 1: was described as an ape like sound. And rather than
Speaker 1: describe it, I'll just try to mimic it the way
Speaker 1: that they mimicked it to me, and it sounded something
Speaker 1: like this, oh oh, oh oh. They stopped. He didn't
Speaker 1: see anything. He didn't see any movement. Now, we all
Speaker 1: face points in life when we have the fight or
Speaker 1: flight reaction, and young Jake had the flight reaction, and
Speaker 1: he broke out and ran toward the house. Now Jeff,
Speaker 1: being an old country boy, he knows if you're out
Speaker 1: in the woods in some situation like that and your
Speaker 1: buddy runs, the best thing to do is follow him
Speaker 1: and ask questions later, and that's what he did. So
Speaker 1: they got into the house and they were talking to
Speaker 1: each other with what was that? Now they were both
Speaker 1: well aware of the Lord. Jeff had actually had some
Speaker 1: experiences in the past, and curiosity got the best of them.
Speaker 1: If you haven't experienced, that curiosity bug is gonna buite you.
Speaker 1: Trust me, it will change things, and that curiosity bug
Speaker 1: will get you. They elected to come back outside. Jake said,
Speaker 1: let me grab my piece out of my vehicle. He
Speaker 1: grabbed a handgun. So at that point in time they
Speaker 1: did house some protection. Jeff resumed spotlighting and they could
Speaker 1: hear this, the source of this continuing to walk, pacing
Speaker 1: back and forth, and it stopped, and after a few
Speaker 1: minutes they decided to go downhill, cross that road and
Speaker 1: go to that fence, and they still had the relative
Speaker 1: safety of about ten yards of clear area between that
Speaker 1: fence and the woods. And they got down to the fence.
Speaker 1: The walking resumed, except now it was walking away from them,
Speaker 1: and it was clear to them that it was descending
Speaker 1: back down into the depths of that holler, and it
Speaker 1: continued to get more distant. But then they could tell
Speaker 1: that it was not moving away from them anymore, and
Speaker 1: it was pacing back and forth and back and forth.
Speaker 1: They would hear some more of the sounds, and then
Speaker 1: it all stopped. Jeff and Jake, after a few minutes,
Speaker 1: decided to go back up into the yard on high ground,
Speaker 1: and they did, and they heard the steps coming back
Speaker 1: up out of the holler toward them closer and closer,
Speaker 1: and they knew at that point that it was as
Speaker 1: clear as it had been yet. Jeff was faithfully spotlighting
Speaker 1: those woods, trying to hone in to see anything that
Speaker 1: he could see, and finally it happened. He testifies that
Speaker 1: he clearly saw a mouth in an upper chest, and
Speaker 1: that the only thing that wasn't covered by hair was
Speaker 1: the mouth, and to the best of his knowledge, it
Speaker 1: was a reddish brown colored hair. And he was mesmerized
Speaker 1: by and caught up in a moment again and looking,
Speaker 1: and suddenly the shout, these guttural yells started again with
Speaker 1: those ape like noises, and they clearly heard stomping and
Speaker 1: the yelling and the stomping, and then he saw what
Speaker 1: the spotlight that one of the trees was shaking violently
Speaker 1: back and forth. And they felt relatively safe, they had protection,
Speaker 1: they had a lot of distance, but both were very uneasy,
Speaker 1: and both were very frightened. And that continued for several minutes,
Speaker 1: and then finally it stopped. They heard the footsteps. They
Speaker 1: heard the footsteps getting more distant and more distant, until
Speaker 1: finally they didn't hear them anymore. So they were just
Speaker 1: standing there wondering what just happened, Whatever this was, what
Speaker 1: was it doing? Was it toying with them. Was it
Speaker 1: sending out a clear message this is my area, you
Speaker 1: need to leave. But to this day both men are
Speaker 1: deeply affected. As a matter of fact, that night Jake said,
Speaker 1: I'm not sure if I want to drive out of here.
Speaker 1: As a rock gonna come out of the woods. It's
Speaker 1: something going to step out in the road. And Uncle
Speaker 1: said I'll provide over watch with the spotlight. And Jake
Speaker 1: was able to safely leave. But to this day they
Speaker 1: are both deeply affected by that. And so would you.
Speaker 1: You guys, take care. I'll see you next time.
Speaker 4: They say you don't gotta go home, but you can't stay.
Speaker 3: Inside step stepside, Joy this child that chart, everything came
Speaker 3: right back, right back Joy for me. Enjoy staying right.
Speaker 4: You come it right away and still still stay. Say
Speaker 4: things things, don't doss stass things usss