Speaker 1: When I was nine, our family lived in Plumber, Idaho,
Speaker 1: a small logging town in the Panhandle. We actually lived
Speaker 1: on ten acres of land in the hills several miles
Speaker 1: outside of town. My two older brothers were avid hunters
Speaker 1: who would go on extended hunting trips, and they'd leave
Speaker 1: from our house and head out to the middle of nowhere,
Speaker 1: pick a spot where they wanted to hunt, and then
Speaker 1: build a shelter out of fallen timber where they'd stay
Speaker 1: for the duration of their hunt. One year, they asked
Speaker 1: me if I wanted to go, I would get to
Speaker 1: stay in one of their timber shelters. They would cook
Speaker 1: for me over the campfire, and they'd even let me
Speaker 1: shoot one of their rifles. They promised it would be
Speaker 1: a lot of fun, and I asked my dad if
Speaker 1: it'd be okay, and after they assured him that they
Speaker 1: would take good care of me, he agreed to let
Speaker 1: me go. We headed out on a Friday evening, and
Speaker 1: I remember the day because it meant I would be
Speaker 1: missing Saturday morning cartoons the next morning. Oh man, that, oh,
Speaker 1: anything that interrupted Saturday morning cartoons was horrible for me
Speaker 1: to brother. I agree with that, but I digress. For
Speaker 1: a kid, that was a big deal, but this sounded
Speaker 1: like more fun. Besides, I really wanted to fire my
Speaker 1: brother's thirty thirty rifle, even if it would probably knock
Speaker 1: me on my butt. We crammed into the front seat
Speaker 1: of my brother's regular cab pickup and headed further into
Speaker 1: the mountains. It seemed like it took forever, so I
Speaker 1: think we must have been up there quite away. Of course,
Speaker 1: I was still a kid, and so the distance may
Speaker 1: have been exaggerated in my mind, but it seemed like
Speaker 1: it took a really long time. We finally parked in
Speaker 1: a clearing outside of the main tree line, and we
Speaker 1: hiked the rest of the way in. We went far
Speaker 1: enough in that one of my brothers had to carry
Speaker 1: me on his back for the last half of the
Speaker 1: walk to the campsite, and by the time we got
Speaker 1: there it was getting late, at least it was for me.
Speaker 1: So I sat on a log and watched as my
Speaker 1: brother set up the camp and started a fire. Then
Speaker 1: we went into the shelter, crawled into our sleeping bags,
Speaker 1: and we fell asleep. The next morning, we got up
Speaker 1: at the start of the day, but our food supply
Speaker 1: was gone. My brothers had hung it in a large
Speaker 1: pine tree the night before. I remember it looking impossibly
Speaker 1: high to my juvenile mind. There were broken branches all
Speaker 1: over the ground around that tree. These were big branches,
Speaker 1: not just little branches, and they were broken off way
Speaker 1: up the trunk. My older brother, who was six foot
Speaker 1: five inches tall, remarked that he would have had to
Speaker 1: use a ten foot ladder to get up there. My
Speaker 1: oldest brother was sure it wasn't a bear because he
Speaker 1: chosen a branch that stuck out from the tree, and
Speaker 1: black bears would be too small to reach it. He
Speaker 1: figured even a grizzly wouldn't have been able to get
Speaker 1: up to that bag. They both looked pretty confused and angry.
Speaker 1: Now we would have to leave the next day, which
Speaker 1: meant that they would only have one day to hunt.
Speaker 1: It was just sad, really, and I was looking forward
Speaker 1: to having bacon and eggs cooked on the campfire. They
Speaker 1: brought just enough jerky and snacks to get us through
Speaker 1: the next morning. So my oldest brother went hunting, while
Speaker 1: my other brother decided to stay in camp and teach
Speaker 1: me how to fire the rifle. He really only stayed
Speaker 1: because my legs were so sore from the long hike in,
Speaker 1: even though he'd carried me halfway. That evening, my oldest
Speaker 1: brother returned to camp empty handed. He told us that
Speaker 1: it had been a very strange day while he was
Speaker 1: out there. He didn't see any signs of anything. He
Speaker 1: didn't see any of the usual small forest animals. He
Speaker 1: didn't even see any birds. He couldn't find any deer
Speaker 1: tracks when they were usually tons of them. Plus there
Speaker 1: was a strange, horrible smell. My older brother mentioned that
Speaker 1: he'd smell something weird the night before too well. Disappointed
Speaker 1: that the trip had been a bus we crawled into
Speaker 1: our sleeping bags that night with plans to pack up
Speaker 1: and leave the next morning. But it wasn't long before
Speaker 1: we heard branches breaking and knocking sounds just outside camp.
Speaker 1: Then something started grunting, and we all sat up to listen.
Speaker 1: At first, my brothers thought it was other hunters, but
Speaker 1: the grunting got louder and it was accompanied by something
Speaker 1: really big stomping around. My oldest brother grabbed his rifle
Speaker 1: and stuck his head out to look around. He popped
Speaker 1: right back in and yelled, grab the guns, we're leaving now.
Speaker 1: My other brother started to pack, but my oldest brother
Speaker 1: told him to leave everything else and to carry me
Speaker 1: on his back the whole way. This point, I was
Speaker 1: really scared and I had started crying. The last thing
Speaker 1: I remember was a strange howling sound. It wasn't like
Speaker 1: a dog or a coyote or a wolf. This was
Speaker 1: deeper and louder. The height back to the truck took
Speaker 1: what felt like hours. When we got there, my brother
Speaker 1: threw me into the cab and we were gone. I
Speaker 1: don't know what it was out there that night. I
Speaker 1: never saw it, but neither of my brothers ever hunted
Speaker 1: that area again, and over the years I've tried to
Speaker 1: get my oldest brother to tell me what he saw,
Speaker 1: and after all this time, he still won't talk about it.
Speaker 1: This is the story of how my fascination with sisquatch began,
Speaker 1: and it comes right out of my book titled Revelations
Speaker 1: the Humid Hominid Connection. I've always loved the great Northwest
Speaker 1: Washington State is certainly one of the most beautiful. While
Speaker 1: up in the Wanache National Forest in nineteen eighty four,
Speaker 1: participating in an Army rotc field training exercise, I had
Speaker 1: an extraordinary experience, one that changed my perspective on life forever.
Speaker 1: This is a story of my first encounter, and it
Speaker 1: set me on a path to be an independent researcher.
Speaker 1: While the other cadets were sound asleep in their mummy
Speaker 1: bags under the pine trees, I was pulling duty as
Speaker 1: a sentry in fireguard, guarding the fire and keeping it going.
Speaker 1: With standard operating procedure, if you wanted to keep all
Speaker 1: the critters away and have something to start the coffee
Speaker 1: in the morning, we also had to tend to the
Speaker 1: fire to practice good fire safety. While in the forest.
Speaker 1: We would all take turns and relieve each other every
Speaker 1: hour on the hour throughout the night. My shift started
Speaker 1: at two hundred and was almost over. After kicking my
Speaker 1: replacement twice and trying to wake him up, I realized
Speaker 1: that he was not up to the task, and since
Speaker 1: it was already about three thirty now, I decided to
Speaker 1: stay by the fire and keep it going until dawn.
Speaker 1: I recalled with a chuckle a story by a few
Speaker 1: ftx's before that, a herd of elk passed through the
Speaker 1: camp and one stopped to lick the salt off the
Speaker 1: face of one of the cadets. Up until then, who
Speaker 1: would have guessed that a person could jump up and
Speaker 1: run off, screaming into the night while still zipped up
Speaker 1: in a sleeping bag, but somehow he did it. I
Speaker 1: guess all you have to do is get one foot
Speaker 1: out through the zipper and then you can run forever.
Speaker 1: So there I was all along, keeping an eye on
Speaker 1: the low burning campfire. I was sitting face to face
Speaker 1: to the south with the fire in front of me
Speaker 1: because the cool n eye air was drifting through the
Speaker 1: pines from north to south and I wanted to keep
Speaker 1: the smoke out of my eyes. Suddenly I heard something
Speaker 1: coming through the woods. The sound was over my right
Speaker 1: shoulder at about my five o'clock position. Whatever it was,
Speaker 1: it had to be big and heavy, because limbs and
Speaker 1: twigs were snapping and popping, and it was coming up
Speaker 1: the hill right for our camp site. I was frozen
Speaker 1: with excitement and anticipation, waiting to see another herd of
Speaker 1: elks stroll through. And then everything went quiet, like I
Speaker 1: had just fallen into a dead zone. It was a
Speaker 1: strange and unusual silence, the kind where time even stands
Speaker 1: still just before something bad happens. I couldn't see or
Speaker 1: hear a thing only that within the glow of the
Speaker 1: campfire and the rhythmic snoring of a few cadets. I
Speaker 1: quickly started adding more sticks to the fire to increase
Speaker 1: in signature in the range of its light. And that's
Speaker 1: when I realized that I was not the only thing
Speaker 1: awake in the forest. I sensed a presence of something
Speaker 1: there standing next to a big pine tree at my
Speaker 1: two o'clock, just on the edge of the firelight, about
Speaker 1: thirty feet away. I could see it best only in
Speaker 1: my peripheral view. At night, our vision relies on two
Speaker 1: primary mechanisms receptors rods and cones in your eye, which
Speaker 1: collect in sin light impulses to the brain. At night,
Speaker 1: a blind spot is evident when looking straight ahead, so
Speaker 1: your visual acuity is better at night when using your
Speaker 1: peripheral view. This enabled me to definitely see the silhouette
Speaker 1: of something dark and huge standing upright. Yes, it was vertical,
Speaker 1: and it was no elk and it certainly was not
Speaker 1: a bear standing on its hind legs. It took me
Speaker 1: a few seconds to process what I was seeing, and
Speaker 1: it was something that was not supposed to exist. It
Speaker 1: was at that point when my blood ran cold and
Speaker 1: the hair on the back of my neck stood up.
Speaker 1: I still get chills now as I recount this part
Speaker 1: of the story. I remember saying under my breath, Wow,
Speaker 1: they really do exist. This creature was standing quietly and
Speaker 1: very still, and it was checking us out. There was
Speaker 1: no doubt about it. It was a side squatch and
Speaker 1: it was a big one picture, a slimmer green hulk
Speaker 1: type character with black skin covered in black hair. It
Speaker 1: was standing there like a statue, all majestic, looking down
Speaker 1: on me. Up until this experience, I was only aware
Speaker 1: of the Patterson Gimlins story in the famous video from California,
Speaker 1: and I also had seen the Boggy Creek Monster movie
Speaker 1: with some friends around nineteen seventy three. I never gave
Speaker 1: it much thought after that. I was neither a believer
Speaker 1: nor a skeptic. But there it was. It strolled right
Speaker 1: off the pages of myth, legend and folkal or straight
Speaker 1: into our camp, confirming the stories to be true. It
Speaker 1: was standing next to a pine tree, looking at us,
Speaker 1: or at me. Since I was the only one awaken alert,
Speaker 1: I could actually see the amber glint of the fire
Speaker 1: reflecting in its big black eyes, and it was counting us,
Speaker 1: sizing us up and taking in every detail. I think
Speaker 1: it was going somewhere in a hurry, and we just
Speaker 1: happened to be in its way. The fear that was
Speaker 1: running through me was unlike anything that can be adequately described.
Speaker 1: It was downright paralyzing. It was like being at a
Speaker 1: zoo looking at a ten foot eight hundred pound muscle
Speaker 1: bound man beast that you didn't know existed, like a
Speaker 1: new species on display, and you were seeing it for
Speaker 1: the first time. The sheer size and manlike shape of
Speaker 1: it filled you with fear, and it made a monstrous
Speaker 1: thing to behold. It was dangerous too, because without a
Speaker 1: retaining wall, fence or moat there to protect you, it
Speaker 1: could easily take two steps and grab you by the
Speaker 1: neck with one hand and pinch your head off. We
Speaker 1: were in the wild and only thirty feet apart, and
Speaker 1: the feeling of being completely exposed and vulnerable to this
Speaker 1: forest giant was overwhelming. The revelation that this huge, wild
Speaker 1: manlike creature is wandering around freely and thriving on the
Speaker 1: fringe of human civilization since the dawn of time shocked
Speaker 1: me to my core. As quick as the fear rushed
Speaker 1: over me, it started to leave. My fear transformed into
Speaker 1: the feeling of accepting my fate as I recognized the
Speaker 1: fact that we just happened to occupy the same space
Speaker 1: at the same time. He could have killed us all
Speaker 1: if he wanted, but he didn't, and there was nothing
Speaker 1: we could have done to stop him. So the best
Speaker 1: I could do was sit there calmly and act like
Speaker 1: it was no big deal. I'm calling it a he
Speaker 1: because it is an alpha male thing. I just knew
Speaker 1: it was a male from its posture and sheer size
Speaker 1: and the feeling I got that he was the one
Speaker 1: controlling the moment. He wasn't hunched over either. He was
Speaker 1: standing up straight and proud. His right hand was on
Speaker 1: the pine tree to his right, and the left arm
Speaker 1: was relaxed and extended straight down to his left side,
Speaker 1: the fingers ending just above the left knee. The size
Speaker 1: of the left hand was amazingly large, as each finger
Speaker 1: looked like the size of the biggest and longest banana
Speaker 1: you could find, and it had fingernails, not claws. His
Speaker 1: forearm appeared to be longer than his bicep, which was
Speaker 1: freaking massive. After about a minute of staring at each other,
Speaker 1: things started to get even more real. He moved. He
Speaker 1: began to move counterclockwise around the campsite, from tree to
Speaker 1: tree to a position directly behind me, and that's when
Speaker 1: I got a good whiff of a sweaty, musky animal scent.
Speaker 1: It wasn't offensive, just a wild, wet animal scent hanging
Speaker 1: on the night air. And when he was behind me
Speaker 1: about at my six o'clock position, I remember turning my
Speaker 1: head to the side to let him know that I
Speaker 1: was aware of where he was, and I tried to
Speaker 1: act as disinterested as I could and not show any fear,
Speaker 1: even though I was still somewhat petrified. I was bluffing
Speaker 1: it with a cool, calm courage the best I could do.
Speaker 1: I had to, as I couldn't even feel my legs,
Speaker 1: so standing up and running away was completely out of
Speaker 1: the question. And I sense that he respected the fact
Speaker 1: that I recognized too or what he was, and accepted
Speaker 1: his presence without freaking out and waking up the others.
Speaker 1: We all carried a rubberized M sixteen for training purposes,
Speaker 1: and I realized that mine was laying on the ground
Speaker 1: next to me. I made sure not to reach for
Speaker 1: it or even make a move in that general direction.
Speaker 1: The last thing I wanted to do was appear threatening
Speaker 1: in any way or to get this thing excited. So
Speaker 1: I just sat there quietly while throwing more sticks on
Speaker 1: the fire because I had to get a better look
Speaker 1: at this man beast. My initial fear factor was now
Speaker 1: fading into pure curiosity with a strange sense of calm
Speaker 1: due to receiving a feeling or a message that he
Speaker 1: had no intention of harming us. I can't explain this,
Speaker 1: but this is when I first realized that I may
Speaker 1: be a bit of a cognitive EmPATH and was susceptible
Speaker 1: to some kind of mind speak telepathy ability. It was
Speaker 1: like I could feel what it was feeling, and I
Speaker 1: could hear what it was thinking. My research shows that
Speaker 1: we are all born with this stability, but it takes
Speaker 1: an active one to unlock a passive one. Without any doubt,
Speaker 1: I was clearly being told that we just happened to
Speaker 1: be in its way, and we're not in any real danger.
Speaker 1: He also relayed to me a message that he wasn't
Speaker 1: going to make any noise if I didn't. He even
Speaker 1: demonstrated this by not making a sound. No howls, no growls, grunts,
Speaker 1: or footfalls. He wanted to keep this encounter just between us.
Speaker 1: Because of this connection, there was an unnatural sense of
Speaker 1: admiration and respect that existed between us, and it was
Speaker 1: totally enabled by him. After a few moments, I noticed
Speaker 1: that he had moved again, back to my two o'clock
Speaker 1: position next to the tree where I first noticed him.
Speaker 1: Now with the fire burning a little brighter, I noticed
Speaker 1: a knob where a limb had broken off on that tree,
Speaker 1: just above his head. I registered that so I could
Speaker 1: determine his height later. And then he moved again and
Speaker 1: then again, always using the trees to mask his profile.
Speaker 1: He would move only when I would break eye contact
Speaker 1: and reach down to throw more sticks on the fire.
Speaker 1: He was in stealth mode for sure. While he stood there,
Speaker 1: I was able to detect a slight shimmer of firelight
Speaker 1: off his hair, which was about four inches long and
Speaker 1: longer around the head and the chin area. I could
Speaker 1: also see a glint of fire light off the oily
Speaker 1: dark skin of his cheekbone and bridge of his nose
Speaker 1: and nostrils. I couldn't see any necker ears due to
Speaker 1: the long black hair. The one thing that was so
Speaker 1: impressive was how something that huge and heavy, could move
Speaker 1: so fluid without making a sound. If I hadn't kept
Speaker 1: an eye on him, I wouldn't have detected any movement
Speaker 1: at all. Just as I was getting used to his presence,
Speaker 1: I sensed that he was in a hurry and had
Speaker 1: to be somewhere else before sunrise. It was like he
Speaker 1: said goodbye shortly thereafter, the tension of the moment had
Speaker 1: left and he was gone. All sensory input that I
Speaker 1: was receiving had just dissipated, and the silence lifted. He
Speaker 1: had departed on the same heading, arriving at my five
Speaker 1: o'clock and leaving on my eleven o'clock, heading south southeast
Speaker 1: to wherever he was going. Originally, later, after looking at
Speaker 1: the map, that heading would have placed him down in
Speaker 1: the valley just below before dawn, where all of the
Speaker 1: forms and ranches were. The early morning light came as
Speaker 1: I expected, and I started the coffee. I was still
Speaker 1: in total awe of what had happened, and I felt
Speaker 1: physically drained and emotionally numb, with a healthy dose of
Speaker 1: euphoria mixed in for good measure. The others started to stir,
Speaker 1: and while we had breakfast, someone asked how my night was.
Speaker 1: After hearing that no one had relieved me from fireguard,
Speaker 1: I simply said, without thinking, well, we had a visitor,
Speaker 1: a big, two legged, hairy visitor. Yep, it was a sisquatch.
Speaker 1: That's when the smirks and ridicule began and the cynics
Speaker 1: started weighing in. In fact, following that event, one of
Speaker 1: my fellow cadets pulled me aside to offer some advice.
Speaker 1: He said, if you want to kill your military career
Speaker 1: before it even gets started, then keep talking about what
Speaker 1: you saw. Well. I got the message allowed and clear,
Speaker 1: and I vowed never to share that story with anyone again,
Speaker 1: at least until the time was right. As the sun
Speaker 1: crested on the eastern horizon, I walked over to the
Speaker 1: tree and tried to estimate the height from the ground
Speaker 1: to the tree knob. I did this by tying a
Speaker 1: stick to one end of a string of five point
Speaker 1: fifty pair of cord, and then tossed it up over
Speaker 1: the tree knob, pulling the stick tight into the notch.
Speaker 1: When I tied the knot in the cord at the
Speaker 1: bottom where it touched the ground, it would be tape
Speaker 1: measured later. It measured out to be nine point four feet,
Speaker 1: so he was a big one for sure. I also
Speaker 1: noticed a trail of impressions in the soft pine duff.
Speaker 1: They were big impressions, two inches deep, and they went
Speaker 1: all around the camp perimeter. The prince measured out to
Speaker 1: be almost twenty inches from heel to toe, with the
Speaker 1: width being eight inches wide. It was difficult to get
Speaker 1: an actual measurement due to the soft soul under the
Speaker 1: pine duff, making none of it cast worthy, but you
Speaker 1: could easily tell that something big and heavy had moved
Speaker 1: through the area. The stride was impressive, as it measured
Speaker 1: to be about six feet between impressions. I couldn't believe
Speaker 1: my eyes when I realized that the tracks at my
Speaker 1: backside my six o'clock position, had closed in and were
Speaker 1: only fifteen feet away from me where I was sitting.
Speaker 1: He actually took advantage of my blindside and moved in
Speaker 1: for a closer look. I'm sure that is when I
Speaker 1: could smell him, as it put him directly up when
Speaker 1: from me. I consider myself fortunate to have been there
Speaker 1: and awake that night. Maybe things would have ended differently
Speaker 1: if someone else had been up watching the fire, experiencing
Speaker 1: a myth, a legend, and an entity of folklore is
Speaker 1: not something that someone asked for, as it can be
Speaker 1: a frightening experience if you are receptive to new possibilities
Speaker 1: and find yourself in the presence of one, remain calm
Speaker 1: and respectful. In this case, seeing something that we are
Speaker 1: told does not exist becomes a life changing, significant emotional event.
Speaker 1: From that day forward, I began to question a lot
Speaker 1: because I knew that most people didn't, and knowing the
Speaker 1: truth is an amazing feeling. If you don't actively pursue
Speaker 1: the truth in life, then you are destined to live
Speaker 1: a lie. So if you want to see one, put
Speaker 1: yourself out there in the wild and embrace your animal spirit,
Speaker 1: enjoy nature and the great outdoors, and let them find you.
Speaker 1: And that's the end of its email. Man, that's awesome.
Speaker 1: I believe I just read a section from his book.
Speaker 1: I'm not sure. I'm going to have to read the
Speaker 1: book to find out. But again, this is written by TJ. Neely.
Speaker 1: He is the author of Revelations the Human Hominism Connection. Again.
Speaker 1: It was published about a year ago. I'm sure he'd
Speaker 1: love it if you check his book out. I don't
Speaker 1: know the man I have never talked to him. I'm
Speaker 1: just this is all coming through an email that I
Speaker 1: got sometime back. So this is a really good story though,
Speaker 1: and I know everyone enjoyed it. So I want to
Speaker 1: thank mister Neely for sending this. I really do appreciate it.
Speaker 1: Thank you, sir,