Speaker 1: In the late nineties, I found myself working as an
Speaker 1: electrical contractor at a nearby chemical plant. The men I
Speaker 1: worked with there were older and not filled with as
Speaker 1: much nonsense as me, and this led to a lot
Speaker 1: of fun filled debate in the break room. For example,
Speaker 1: one of our biggest debates was about who was the
Speaker 1: greatest athlete of modern times. Partly tongue in cheek, I
Speaker 1: asserted that it was Evil Knievel, based on the fact
Speaker 1: that he put all of it on the line to score,
Speaker 1: and that if he missed his goal, there was no
Speaker 1: steak or hot tub waiting, but rather a visit to
Speaker 1: the hospital or even to the morgue. After a lot
Speaker 1: of debate and ribbing, the subject turned to Bigfoot. One
Speaker 1: of the older men said, yeah, I guess you believe
Speaker 1: in Bigfoot too, don't you, to which I replied, yes,
Speaker 1: I believe there's a possibility that Bigfoot does exist. I
Speaker 1: wouldn't rule them out. Again, these men, being hardened in
Speaker 1: level headed hunters and fishermen, they laughed and made some
Speaker 1: more smart remarks. It was all in good fun, and
Speaker 1: none of us really took it seriously. Our silly break
Speaker 1: room banter was just our way of blowing off steam
Speaker 1: and forgetting for a few minutes the hard labor and
Speaker 1: the intensely dangerous work conditions that we faced every day.
Speaker 1: That day, my work partner Remo asked me, do you
Speaker 1: really think Bigfoot could be real? And I replied, to
Speaker 1: be honest, I hope it is. One thing is for sure.
Speaker 1: When I get to Heaven, I'll find out. Remo then said,
Speaker 1: if I tell you something, will you not mention it
Speaker 1: to the other guys. I said, of course, knowing he
Speaker 1: was about to tell me something that he trusted me with,
Speaker 1: and so Remo began to tell me his story. Three
Speaker 1: years ago, I went deer hunting. I have a regular
Speaker 1: spot that I go to where I have a tree
Speaker 1: stand set up up and there are plenty of natural
Speaker 1: attractors for deer. I kill a deer almost every time
Speaker 1: I go there. I had been there the weekend before
Speaker 1: to make sure my stand was there and in good
Speaker 1: shape so there would be no surprises. When I came
Speaker 1: back to hunt, I was pulling into my parking location
Speaker 1: well before sunrise. I got out and started loading up
Speaker 1: my gear, and I saw an empty truck that had
Speaker 1: obviously arrived before me. I knew this because there was
Speaker 1: frost on the windshield, the rifle rack was empty, and
Speaker 1: an empty bottle of apple scent was laying on the
Speaker 1: ground next to the truck. I figured it was another
Speaker 1: hunter who just liked the same area that I did.
Speaker 1: The evidence of another hunter would normally discourage most but
Speaker 1: it was a vast national forest area in northeast Tennessee,
Speaker 1: in the Rhone Mountain area, and there was plenty of
Speaker 1: room for more than one hunter. Also, for the most part,
Speaker 1: this is an area where people are still neighbors and
Speaker 1: consider it to one another. I began to hear a
Speaker 1: ruckus coming from some distance away, deep in the woods.
Speaker 1: This was gonna scare off the deer if these guys
Speaker 1: keep it up. I put on my hat and vest,
Speaker 1: and I started down the trail towards the location of
Speaker 1: my deer stand. As I walked, I could hear limbs
Speaker 1: breaking and someone yelling for help. Someone was in trouble,
Speaker 1: so I picked up the pace. As I topped a
Speaker 1: small rise and started down the opposite side, I caught
Speaker 1: sight of a man running as hard as he could,
Speaker 1: and he was in a panic. It had to be
Speaker 1: this other hunter, as the man approached. I could see
Speaker 1: the look of sheer terror in his eyes, and he screamed, run, run,
Speaker 1: follow me, Let's run, and he never slowed his paste
Speaker 1: as he ran past me. I followed him back down
Speaker 1: the trail towards the trucks, and I noticed that he
Speaker 1: did not have a rifle. This was really odd. Who
Speaker 1: goes deer huh without a rifle. We reached the trucks
Speaker 1: about the same time and he collapsed from exhaustion. Remo
Speaker 1: questioned the man and asked what happened, fully expecting to
Speaker 1: hear that he had stumbled onto a moonshine still or
Speaker 1: a marijuana grow. These can be dangerous to stumble upon
Speaker 1: because these groves are closely guarded. Monster was all he said,
Speaker 1: over and over, Monster Monster. Even though his eyes darted
Speaker 1: around wildly, checking in all directions, he took just enough
Speaker 1: time before tearing down the gravel road at breakneck speed
Speaker 1: to say that a ten foot tall, apelike black monster
Speaker 1: had attacked him after he took a shot at it.
Speaker 1: He claimed the shot only infuriated the creature, and it
Speaker 1: charged his tree stand. In what seemed like a single movement.
Speaker 1: The creature charged him, ripped the gun from his hands,
Speaker 1: pulled the tree stand down to the ground with him
Speaker 1: in it, and crouched down facing the man as it
Speaker 1: burst forth with a deafening roar right in his face.
Speaker 1: The hunter scrambled to his feet and tore through the
Speaker 1: woods in terror. Remo was stunned. He wondered if this
Speaker 1: was a trick to run him out of the forest
Speaker 1: and his favorite hunting spot. After a self motivational pep talk,
Speaker 1: Remo decided that it would take more than a crazy
Speaker 1: fairy tale to keep him from getting a deer that day.
Speaker 1: He proceeded back to the trail and made the hike
Speaker 1: to his tree stand. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary
Speaker 1: when he got there. Surely the other hunter had a
Speaker 1: nightmare while sleeping in his stand, or maybe he had
Speaker 1: mental problems, or it could have been under the influence
Speaker 1: of drugs. Whatever it was, it didn't matter. Now. Remo
Speaker 1: had settled into his stand and was ready for a
Speaker 1: good hunt. He heard the crunch of dry leaves in
Speaker 1: the distance, but he couldn't see the animal to the
Speaker 1: faint light of the early morning. Maybe a deer was
Speaker 1: heading his way. The animal was coming straight to him,
Speaker 1: and he was perfectly positioned for the kill. The light
Speaker 1: of the rising sun had revealed all the details of
Speaker 1: the landscape for many yards in every direction, so he
Speaker 1: scanned the woods, looking and waiting. He focused in on
Speaker 1: something that was unusual and didn't belong in the woods.
Speaker 1: The shapes were wrong. Not far away was the twisted
Speaker 1: and mangled remains of a tree stand. The wind shifted
Speaker 1: and a horrible smell overtook him as he looked around him,
Speaker 1: searching for the animal and now what was producing that
Speaker 1: nasty odor? And just beyond his stand on the ground
Speaker 1: was the broken stock of a deer rifle. Something was
Speaker 1: way off about this whole situation. The rustling leaves was
Speaker 1: coming closer, but it was not the familiar sound of
Speaker 1: a big buck. It was the heavy thud of two
Speaker 1: feet walking. Becoming a bit unnerved, he decided to quietly
Speaker 1: make his way down the tree and quickly jogged back
Speaker 1: to his truck. He did not wait around to see
Speaker 1: what this thing was. He got in his truck and
Speaker 1: he left. I could see that he was embarrassed to
Speaker 1: admit this, but I also seemed to be relieved to
Speaker 1: have finally shared it with someone. His nervousness quickly left
Speaker 1: as I assured him that I would not share his
Speaker 1: story with the other men. Remo never said if he
Speaker 1: ever went back to that spot, but I knew him
Speaker 1: for years and he never mentioned hunting, just fishing. I
Speaker 1: wonder sometimes if Bigfoot won a victory over the rights
Speaker 1: to his territory that day. I cannot claim to know
Speaker 1: the truth about this story, but I can vouch for
Speaker 1: the man who shared it with me. He was an honest,
Speaker 1: hard working, no nonsense man. He told me his story
Speaker 1: at great risk of intense ridicule from others. I grew
Speaker 1: up in the middle of Baton Rouge, Louisiana, so I
Speaker 1: don't have stories of life on the farm other than
Speaker 1: the two hundred acre form my grandfather had. That's where
Speaker 1: my dad taught me to hunt. That being said, my
Speaker 1: life was never normal. It was filled with unusual events,
Speaker 1: like lightning streaking through my house during the summer thunderstorms.
Speaker 1: To a small boy, the bluish streaks flashing through the
Speaker 1: house were the greatest thing in the world. We had
Speaker 1: a tall TV in tent of wired to a massive
Speaker 1: sycamore tree for support, and I believe it acted like
Speaker 1: a lightning conductor. It never hurt us or damaged the house,
Speaker 1: but it made Mom jump and scream every time it flashed.
Speaker 1: That's probably why I love lightning storms, not because a
Speaker 1: mom jumping and screaming, but knowing it probably wouldn't hurt me.
Speaker 1: I chased life with a camera for about four years,
Speaker 1: and I got some amazing photos. I grew up in
Speaker 1: the Deep South with all the legends of monsters in
Speaker 1: the woods, ghosts everywhere, and things that go bump in
Speaker 1: the night. It's taken seventy one years of living to
Speaker 1: prove that most of them are real. I've hunted and
Speaker 1: fished the woods and waters of Louisiana all my life,
Speaker 1: beginning with trips to fishing spots that were just a
Speaker 1: little wider than the fourteen foot boat my dad and
Speaker 1: I were in. Well that's where the fish are. We
Speaker 1: went to exotic places like Cockadri. I think that's how
Speaker 1: you pronounce that cocodre, Cockadrie, Grassy Lake, False River, and
Speaker 1: Bayou Pigeon. These waters were filled with alligators, an alligator
Speaker 1: gar that could easily eat you, an alligator snapping, turtles
Speaker 1: that could take a hand off in one bite. I
Speaker 1: guess it's best to avoid anything with alligator in its name.
Speaker 1: These waters were mostly surrounded by deep woods, dark places
Speaker 1: that would inspire your mind to wander and wonder what
Speaker 1: was out there, even though you didn't really want to know.
Speaker 1: I took comfort knowing that our eighteen horsepower Evan rooted
Speaker 1: outboard and motor could outrun anything that could swim up
Speaker 1: to our boat. The time spent with my dad was
Speaker 1: and is the best memories of growing up. He was
Speaker 1: the guy that knew everything about everything, or so I thought.
Speaker 1: Hunting trips were pretty much the same. We'd get up
Speaker 1: three hours before sunrise and drive sixty miles to the
Speaker 1: middle of nowhere to be in the woods before the
Speaker 1: sun came up. That man walking in the dark to
Speaker 1: our hunting spots, and if I had known what was
Speaker 1: out there, I'd probably have never started hunting. But I
Speaker 1: was reassured by my father that the guns we had
Speaker 1: were all we needed to protect ourselves. His was a
Speaker 1: twelve gage L. C. Smith double barrel shotgun and mine
Speaker 1: was a four to ten bolt action, both loaded with
Speaker 1: number six squirrel shot. And again, if I had only known,
Speaker 1: my journey into the unseen realm started when I was young.
Speaker 1: I had ongoing repetitive nightmares of going to an old
Speaker 1: two story house that was haunted. Each level in the
Speaker 1: house was more frightening and dangerous than the last, and
Speaker 1: in my dream, if I ever had made it to
Speaker 1: the attic, I knew I would die. I never did
Speaker 1: get to the attic in my dream. Luckily I always
Speaker 1: woke up first. Forty years later, I visited that house
Speaker 1: the Myrtles near Saint Francisville, Louisiana. The ghosts were real
Speaker 1: and the dreams stopped. I suppose I had met face
Speaker 1: to face with my fears. Dealing with earth bound souls
Speaker 1: or ghosts became a way of life for me in
Speaker 1: the nineteen seventies. Most of them are lost and confused,
Speaker 1: and they just need a little help finding a direction.
Speaker 1: But some are evil and demonic, and although I didn't
Speaker 1: like it, I had to deal with some of those too.
Speaker 1: Knowing about UFOs was commonplace among all my friends. It
Speaker 1: was a huge topic of conversation. In the nineteen sixties.
Speaker 1: The US was engaged in the space race, and everyone
Speaker 1: was interested in all the things about space. UFOs like Bigfoot,
Speaker 1: were mostly whispered about for fear of ridicule. In two
Speaker 1: thousand and six, while living on a farm in Tylertown, Mississippi,
Speaker 1: I was photographing a thunderstorm and I managed to get
Speaker 1: two clear photographs of a UFO. There. Again proved for
Speaker 1: what I believed, and I sent the photos to Moufon
Speaker 1: and never heard back from them. As for Bigfoot, that
Speaker 1: story started when I was sixteen. The Roger Patterson Bigfoot
Speaker 1: film from California had just come out, and I knew
Speaker 1: it was real. I wanted to go there, but I
Speaker 1: knew it was impossible. Not too much later, the movie
Speaker 1: The Legend of Boggy Creek came out, and I thought
Speaker 1: it was just another B grade scary movie and I
Speaker 1: didn't pay any attention. Shortly after that, my first exposure
Speaker 1: to Bigfoot came at a hunting camp in Morganza, Louisiana.
Speaker 1: It was a twenty three thousand acre lease with two
Speaker 1: hundred and fifty members in the hunting club. The club
Speaker 1: had three camps. Days at the camp included getting up
Speaker 1: two hours before dawn to be on an assigned stand
Speaker 1: as the sun came up, and the drivers would turn
Speaker 1: the dogs loose to get the deer up and moving well.
Speaker 1: That lasted until noon after which we returned to camp
Speaker 1: after the to clean whatever deer were killed. We hung
Speaker 1: out around the camp for the afternoon, drinking beer and
Speaker 1: waiting for supper to be cooked. Later. After supper, there
Speaker 1: was more beer in the nightly card game. Well, myself
Speaker 1: and another sixteen year old nicknamed Poncho had other plans.
Speaker 1: Because it was a moonlit night, we walked down a
Speaker 1: five mile gravel road at night to another camp with
Speaker 1: no flashlights, no guns, nothing but my hunting knife for protection.
Speaker 1: Because there had never been a sighting of a bear
Speaker 1: or cougar, the worst thing that we could meet was
Speaker 1: a deer, apossum, an armadillo, or a skunk. Right about
Speaker 1: a mile into the walk, we could hear something walking
Speaker 1: beside us in the bushes just off the road. It
Speaker 1: sounded light enough to be a person, and it seemed
Speaker 1: to walk on two feet. If we stopped, it stopped,
Speaker 1: and if we walked, it walk. This went on for
Speaker 1: a quarter of a mile, with both of us trying
Speaker 1: to figure out what it was. We ran through all
Speaker 1: the animals that we could think of. No way it
Speaker 1: was anything that we'd heard or seen before. So what
Speaker 1: was it? Was it a person? If it was one
Speaker 1: of the men from our camp. They would have jumped
Speaker 1: out to scare us. A lost hunting dog maybe would
Speaker 1: have come to us. Deer don't follow people. I stopped
Speaker 1: and cut a tall sapling to make a spear, and
Speaker 1: Poncho asked why I did that. I told him, if
Speaker 1: anything comes out of those bushes, I'm gonna stab it.
Speaker 1: It finally faded off in the distance and we never
Speaker 1: knew what it was. Two weeks later I heard on
Speaker 1: the radio that on a recent night, a towboat pilot
Speaker 1: had shined his searchlight on a large, upright walking animal
Speaker 1: on the banks of the Mississippi River near where our
Speaker 1: camp was. He said it was a bigfoot. By the
Speaker 1: time I was twin and had a job that could
Speaker 1: have paid my way to California, I was in love
Speaker 1: and getting married so much for Bigfoot. I kept up
Speaker 1: with the stories of Bigfoot as best as I could,
Speaker 1: and now that I'm single again and retired. In October
Speaker 1: of twenty eighteen, I finally made it to California. While
Speaker 1: walking a boy scout tree trail in Jedediah smith Redwood
Speaker 1: State Park, I found a sixteen inch bigfoot track. I
Speaker 1: hoped I would find the bigfoot there. I did find
Speaker 1: a big footprint, but not the bigfoot. I was like
Speaker 1: a kid in a candy store. I was all but
Speaker 1: dancing as I look for what made the print, but
Speaker 1: I never saw it. I could feel eyes on me,
Speaker 1: though something was watching me, and I'd call out to it,
Speaker 1: come see me. I'm not afraid of you, and I
Speaker 1: won't hurt you, and I won't run away. Come in
Speaker 1: and see me. Nothing appeared or called back, but I
Speaker 1: knew they were there. But what I didn't know was
Speaker 1: that this trail is only twenty miles from where Roger
Speaker 1: Patterson shot his film of Paddy. Had I known, I
Speaker 1: might still be there today. Obligations brought me back to Louisiana,
Speaker 1: and now I have embarked on a quest for bigfoot
Speaker 1: near where I grew up. I headed for the area
Speaker 1: with the most reported sightings of bigfoot in Louisiana. It's
Speaker 1: the Kesachee National Forest. It is six hundred thousand acres
Speaker 1: of commercial pine, timberland and hardwood bottoms, and there's lots
Speaker 1: of room for bigfoot to roam. I made it here
Speaker 1: in April of twenty nineteen, and I've been in this
Speaker 1: area off and on. Since I camp here two to
Speaker 1: three weeks out of every month, as close as a
Speaker 1: half a mile from where I've found their tracks. I
Speaker 1: have found numerous tracks and tree structures supposedly built by Bigfoot,
Speaker 1: and had the extreme pleasure of actually getting a three
Speaker 1: second full body view of one only one hundred yards away.
Speaker 1: On September fifth of twenty nineteen, I was walking one
Speaker 1: of the logging roads here, a stretch that I hadn't
Speaker 1: walked before. It was eight thirty am, and I had
Speaker 1: stopped to look for tracks around a small pond. I
Speaker 1: had my Sony digital camera out. I zoomed out to
Speaker 1: twelve hundred millimeters, looking around the edges of the pond,
Speaker 1: not seeing any tracks of deer, codies, or Bigfoot or raccoons.
Speaker 1: I turned the camera off and let it hang on
Speaker 1: a strap connected to my backpack. Well. As I did,
Speaker 1: I saw something move from the corner of my right eye,
Speaker 1: and when I turned to see what it was, I
Speaker 1: saw about three seconds of the seven foot tall creature
Speaker 1: walk across the road one hundred yards away from me.
Speaker 1: It takes five seconds for that camera to come to
Speaker 1: life and be ready to take a photo, so I
Speaker 1: didn't get photo. I think it had been paralleling me
Speaker 1: as I walked, and when I stopped, it saw a
Speaker 1: chance to get ahead of me, and it crossed the road.
Speaker 1: It was covered in six inch long black hair and
Speaker 1: was slender built. Unlike the reports of the massive hawk
Speaker 1: like creatures. It had an easy gait, apparently in no
Speaker 1: particular hurry. Its head was down a little and I
Speaker 1: couldn't see a neck. The back of its head was
Speaker 1: conical in shape, with a point straight above its head
Speaker 1: as it looked down. Its hands reached almost to its knees,
Speaker 1: and its palms faced towards the rear. It never looked
Speaker 1: my way, either because it didn't see me standing there,
Speaker 1: or it didn't want me to see it in the
Speaker 1: first place, or maybe it did. I've wondered if it
Speaker 1: wanted me to see it briefly, because I had been
Speaker 1: looking for it and talking to them out loud as
Speaker 1: I walked, calling for them to come out to visit me,
Speaker 1: the same way I did in California. I do that
Speaker 1: a lot here, and I've heard mumbled replies, and I've
Speaker 1: even been whistled at by one while walking. Whatever the case,
Speaker 1: I went to try to find it, but I couldn't
Speaker 1: find any tracks because the ground was dry and hardest concrete.
Speaker 1: Most of the accounts for my witnesses say that they
Speaker 1: just wanted to get as far away as possible. I,
Speaker 1: on the other hand, I wanted to get closer. Remember
Speaker 1: I'm the guy that chased lightning. I've heard the tree
Speaker 1: knocks people talk about in vocalizations, and answer to calls
Speaker 1: one of my fellow researchers made. My goal currently is
Speaker 1: to get another sighting and hopefully some photos. I've waited
Speaker 1: fifty five years to get to this point. I guess
Speaker 1: a couple more years won't matter.