Speaker 1: I'm from Central Texas, and they'll have somehow always believed
Speaker 1: in bigfoot. I've never had any experiences here that I
Speaker 1: was aware of. However, as I get older, I think
Speaker 1: there were times when I may have had experiences and
Speaker 1: didn't realize it. I want to share with you what
Speaker 1: happened north of Nashville a few years ago when I
Speaker 1: was working there. I went up one summer for a
Speaker 1: big job and was fortunate to have friends from my
Speaker 1: hometown who lived about thirty miles from where I was working.
Speaker 1: They live on a big hill way out in the
Speaker 1: country near the Kentucky border. The driveway leading to their
Speaker 1: house ran along the creek that ran through the holler,
Speaker 1: with a ridge line on both sides. It was absolutely beautiful,
Speaker 1: surrounded by lush, green trees and the sight and sound
Speaker 1: of the babbling creek over its rocky bed. I often
Speaker 1: went for walks or a jog in the evenings when
Speaker 1: I wasn't too tired. I had done so many times
Speaker 1: when one evening, about an hour before sunset, as I
Speaker 1: was walking on the far ridge, I heard a whoop.
Speaker 1: I thought I was hearing things, and shortly after that,
Speaker 1: on the hillside next to me, only a few hundred
Speaker 1: yards away, I heard a clear and loud tree knock.
Speaker 1: I really started to think, now was I hearing things?
Speaker 1: Was it some locals or meth heads messing with me?
Speaker 1: I kept walking, my friend's dog at my side as
Speaker 1: I tried to reason out what I had heard. I'd
Speaker 1: gone another one hundred yards when I heard another woop.
Speaker 1: What the hell, I thought, and it was followed shortly
Speaker 1: by another wood knock, this time on the fore hill.
Speaker 1: The dog had disappeared so much for Man's best friend,
Speaker 1: I decided then it was time to head back. I
Speaker 1: heard a few more knocks and woops before I got
Speaker 1: back to the house, but none of them were closer
Speaker 1: than the others. I don't know if they knew I
Speaker 1: was there. I don't think so. It was an extremely secluded,
Speaker 1: rough terrain covered in thick woods. The one thing I'm
Speaker 1: absolutely certain of is that it was not people I
Speaker 1: was hearing. I was staying in my RV at my
Speaker 1: friend's place. From that night forward, I always used my
Speaker 1: spot like to check before I went outside. I never
Speaker 1: saw anything, but I did occasionally feel like something was
Speaker 1: watching me or was close by. I know this wasn't
Speaker 1: an actual sighting, but it was enough to change me
Speaker 1: from being just a believer to a knower. Ray. Look
Speaker 1: I've said this, and look I'm no authority on this.
Speaker 1: I don't know, but I do know this. You said
Speaker 1: you felt like that something was watching you. You didn't,
Speaker 1: And I think in a way, you're saying you didn't
Speaker 1: feel like you were alone alone when you should have
Speaker 1: been alone. There shouldn't have been anything around you. I
Speaker 1: always kind of encourage people to, you know, kind of
Speaker 1: go with your sixth sense there, that feeling that you get,
Speaker 1: you know, when something is around is kind of more
Speaker 1: times than not. I kind of It's like I read
Speaker 1: a thing one time that said if you have a
Speaker 1: hunch about something like this doesn't apply to bigfoot at all.
Speaker 1: But like I just kind of stumbled on this article.
Speaker 1: I think I was actually in a dentist office and
Speaker 1: I was reading this article. You know how you just
Speaker 1: pick up a magazine, you just read whatever's there. It
Speaker 1: was a women's magazine, of course, and I was reading
Speaker 1: Thought and it was advice to women and it said
Speaker 1: if you if you think your spouse is being unfaithful
Speaker 1: to you, you're probably right. Now. I don't know that
Speaker 1: I agree with that at all at all. I mean,
Speaker 1: I think you need just a little bit of evidence.
Speaker 1: I mean, you know, I could go through all the
Speaker 1: things that I don't know much about any of that,
Speaker 1: but the point is is, like you have a hunch,
Speaker 1: there are little things that clue you in that something
Speaker 1: is there, and most of us we try to get
Speaker 1: back to normal just as fast as we can. If
Speaker 1: there's something strange going on, we try to get back
Speaker 1: to normal as quickly as we can. And in these situations,
Speaker 1: what you'll do is you'll kind of brush it off. Well,
Speaker 1: maybe that was a tree knock, but maybe it was
Speaker 1: just a piece of wood falling out of a tree
Speaker 1: and that hit another tree. You know, you'll explain it away.
Speaker 1: But if you get that feeling, you're probably right. Now.
Speaker 1: Should you run and hide and be terribly scared and
Speaker 1: all that stuff. Probably not, But trust your instincts, you know,
Speaker 1: and I think you did on this one. I didn't
Speaker 1: mean to ramble on so long about this, but it
Speaker 1: was kind of interesting to me because I think these anecdotal,
Speaker 1: weird kind of events, sounds and noises and smells and
Speaker 1: feelings that people have, I think there's merit to those
Speaker 1: and I love hearing these, and I really appreciate the
Speaker 1: man sending this. This was great. I really really appreciated Ray.
Speaker 1: All right, let's move on to one more. I'm sure
Speaker 1: to be nearing the end of my days on earth
Speaker 1: and surely soon to meet my maker. I will not
Speaker 1: lie about that, and lying was never my habit. I
Speaker 1: can shoot the bull, but I'm well known to be
Speaker 1: an overly serious type person. I'm just a bit strange.
Speaker 1: I am by birth a Texas Native. I have two
Speaker 1: role numbers in the Cherokee tribe and descended from a
Speaker 1: Scottish blacksmith, indentured servant who came early to America and
Speaker 1: later became wealthy. I was a mere weed, yet I
Speaker 1: can truly claim great roots, but many burnt leaves. My
Speaker 1: family fought our British brothers and on both sides of
Speaker 1: our Civil War. And I am second cousin to the
Speaker 1: man in Black, mister Johnny Cash. I'm grateful and proud
Speaker 1: and unashamed Southerner and a proud American. I was also
Speaker 1: a military brat and later a Navy veteran. Being a
Speaker 1: military child, I was raised for eleven and a half
Speaker 1: years in the shadow of sack the former Strategic Air Command.
Speaker 1: I volunteered right out of high school and joined the Navy,
Speaker 1: which should have been a career move but turned out
Speaker 1: to be rather abbreviated as that US Air Force brat.
Speaker 1: I have an interesting and true story of a sacked
Speaker 1: Nouke base that was commandeered in nineteen fifty two by
Speaker 1: the things that we call UFOs. It changed a lot
Speaker 1: of people's minds and thinkings, but I will get to
Speaker 1: that at the end of my letter. For nine years
Speaker 1: I lived in the Pacific Northwest and certainly loved it.
Speaker 1: Times were tough, but I was able to be employed
Speaker 1: with the US Forestry Service during part of that sojourn.
Speaker 1: I was young. I knew many government forestry personnel, landowners, loggers, hunters,
Speaker 1: and fishermen, and a lot of them had personal tests
Speaker 1: the moonies of Bigfoot. So does the US Air Force
Speaker 1: Survival School in northeast Washington State. Personally, I spent every
Speaker 1: free moment I could get in those forested mountains and
Speaker 1: trudged up and down them carrying land surveying equipment and
Speaker 1: personal gear for better or worse. While I certainly had
Speaker 1: my own share of harrowing adventures, and scares. I not
Speaker 1: once encountered a sasquatch, even though living actively right in
Speaker 1: the middle of their habitat, and I didn't have a
Speaker 1: clue as to them being any more than folklore. I
Speaker 1: ended up back down south during the toughest of economic
Speaker 1: times and in a sad and unfulfilled state of mind
Speaker 1: and with very empty pockets. I had also just lost
Speaker 1: everything that I had gained in the Northwest. Twice. Now
Speaker 1: I've had the pleasure to return to Arkansas to live presently.
Speaker 1: I live in northwest Arkansas. Decades ago, I had a
Speaker 1: few acres of woods adjoining the Watchitaw National Forest in
Speaker 1: Montgomery County, west of Hot Springs. It is right across
Speaker 1: the highway from the lake of the same name that
Speaker 1: would be Lake Watchitah. It didn't take long, though, to
Speaker 1: discover the real reason why the former owner, a retired
Speaker 1: of Social Security judge, gave me such a great deal
Speaker 1: on this land. He even threw in a decent boat,
Speaker 1: motor and trailer in trade for me doing the survey.
Speaker 1: He and his wife just wanted to get it sold.
Speaker 1: Perhaps the Misses couldn't tolerate the woods. Some city folk
Speaker 1: are bothered by that they were not ever going to
Speaker 1: live there again. They moved back to the city, and
Speaker 1: I soon learned why. The judge and the missus had
Speaker 1: a well on the property. But it was awful. It
Speaker 1: was greasy water, almost unusable. Mobile homes are not such
Speaker 1: bad choices for a dwelling, as long as you don't
Speaker 1: stick it in a park with a and other such contraptions.
Speaker 1: The electromagnetic attraction or the collection of weirdos in them
Speaker 1: may be too much for a tornado to resist. I
Speaker 1: suspect tornadoes are under some degree of control by normally
Speaker 1: unseen forces. That is what makes me a bit of
Speaker 1: a weirdo. Hey man, don't talk about the trailer parks.
Speaker 1: You mess with me. You messing with the whole trailer park.
Speaker 1: On the back of this house. The judge had had
Speaker 1: a nice deck installed. He even planned to have a
Speaker 1: rock garden. Rocks are about the only thing that will
Speaker 1: grow in that bit of red clay and is continually
Speaker 1: producing chunks of quartz that just works up out of
Speaker 1: the ground despite gravity, and is surely the result of
Speaker 1: the Earth's rotation. Maybe, or perhaps it was the aluminum
Speaker 1: roof on the mobile home. It created a sort of
Speaker 1: hell since he had located it hanging over a hill,
Speaker 1: but under one gigantic old oak tree. That tree produced
Speaker 1: the largest acorns I've ever seen, and a lot of
Speaker 1: them acorns dropped from oak trees, this one in profusion.
Speaker 1: Sleep was not easily obtained. Worse, the area has or
Speaker 1: had an odd propensity to echo the slightest sounds. A
Speaker 1: seasoned one pound acre falling on a metal roof from
Speaker 1: near seventy feet produces a loud bang. A continuous barrage
Speaker 1: produces a resounding den of racket. One could go insane
Speaker 1: from that alone. Perhaps that was enough to make anyone
Speaker 1: sell out fast, and to make such a sweet deal
Speaker 1: to the unknowing buyer. They had that decent old bass
Speaker 1: and ski boat, though they could at least go fishing
Speaker 1: often across the highway in Lake watchitaw and there were
Speaker 1: the deer and the squirrels. It was a hunting and
Speaker 1: fishing heaven. But I heard they spent an inordinate amount
Speaker 1: of time away from the property to be candid. After
Speaker 1: I bought it, so did I. In order to make
Speaker 1: the payments, and as there were few jobs that I
Speaker 1: could take locally, I went into long haul trucking. I
Speaker 1: got to be home for a couple of days every
Speaker 1: three weeks. What a lonely occupation. Still, it paid the
Speaker 1: bills and provided a home for my ailing and aged parents,
Speaker 1: who at first thought it was a genuine God send.
Speaker 1: We all thought so briefly, and we tried to make
Speaker 1: it a home. Soon my only siblings showed up and
Speaker 1: presumed to help out and keep an eye on them.
Speaker 1: I got to use my bedroom, which overhung the hill,
Speaker 1: only occasionally, but for several reasons, huge acorns and being
Speaker 1: addicted to diesel vibrations, I slept often in my truck
Speaker 1: sleeper even though I was home. I knew of the
Speaker 1: large numbers of deer in the area, as well as
Speaker 1: the usual small bear, cougar, bobcats, etc. Yet on the
Speaker 1: two trails that ran the length of the property below
Speaker 1: and on either side of the hill, I seldom found
Speaker 1: deer tracks, or any other tracks for that matter, but
Speaker 1: they showed what I thought was some kind of heavy
Speaker 1: use hard clay and rock, not the best sort of
Speaker 1: ground for detecting the sort of game that used it.
Speaker 1: I passed it off as a minor mystery, unworthy of
Speaker 1: much thought, which proved to be my mistake. My plot
Speaker 1: of dirt and rocks was heavily wooded with pines, dogwood
Speaker 1: and large oaks. Dead leaves were a problem in the
Speaker 1: yard area. The trees certainly bothered my elderly mother, and
Speaker 1: they bothered my dad for entirely different reasons. She and
Speaker 1: my brother were persuaded by a local lumberman in my absence,
Speaker 1: that the pine beetle had begun destroying my pines. She
Speaker 1: was promised an undisclosed amount of money and the promise
Speaker 1: to clean up all of the mess of slysh left behind.
Speaker 1: I note that it was not her decision to make,
Speaker 1: but I had no idea of the denuded property until
Speaker 1: I drove in one weekend. Lots of oaks and dogwoods remained,
Speaker 1: but the pines were gone. I was enraged, but what
Speaker 1: could I do? Nothing and the slash from the logging
Speaker 1: was later cleaned up by myself, my old father, and
Speaker 1: my brother. The pines went into furniture frames. They were gone,
Speaker 1: and I was sick about it. I had noticed every
Speaker 1: warm night on the weekends that I was home and
Speaker 1: I slept with my windows wide open, that I would
Speaker 1: be awakened around eleven PM by a quiet giggling or
Speaker 1: baby talk sound seeming to come from either side of
Speaker 1: the hill, but moving from the US Forest Service area
Speaker 1: down towards Lake Watchitaw across the highway. Strange enough, I thought,
Speaker 1: but I had no idea what to think, and oddly
Speaker 1: thought it was some unknown behavior of other wildlife, probably deer.
Speaker 1: I don't know why I assumed that. I observed that
Speaker 1: the unusual and mysterious sounds could be followed beyond my hearing,
Speaker 1: tracing them by the barking and baying of distant neighbors dogs.
Speaker 1: I knew the area well enough that those deer, It's
Speaker 1: okay to laugh at my deer theory. We're going down
Speaker 1: to the lake to drink and or bathe Sure enough,
Speaker 1: the distant barking would resume around two am, and I
Speaker 1: could trace their progress back towards my place, back up
Speaker 1: the trails, and again toward it and into the Watchitaw
Speaker 1: National Forest. My father liked to rise early and retire
Speaker 1: around sunset with a glass of iced tea out on
Speaker 1: the deck. Often we would sit and chat about nothing
Speaker 1: and the work that we had all done that day.
Speaker 1: Several times, however, he'd remarked about how he thought he
Speaker 1: was being spied on by a big, hairy, camouflaged neighbor
Speaker 1: hiding behind the trees out past our property lines. And
Speaker 1: sure enough, one evening I thought too that I saw
Speaker 1: the fellow. Sometimes he would sway left to right, but
Speaker 1: usually he seemed to peer from behind the trees. Once
Speaker 1: I walked out there with my rifle, hoping to have
Speaker 1: a more friendly encounter with the shy, strange visitor, but
Speaker 1: he would seem to melt into the forest before I
Speaker 1: arrived to where he or it was. By then, I
Speaker 1: was totally unsure of my old pop's vision and sanity,
Speaker 1: but wrote it off as my father's imagination. This too
Speaker 1: was a mistake. My brother, who occupied a sixteen foot
Speaker 1: travel trailer out by the forest service line, was however, terrified.
Speaker 1: He seldom spoke of it, but had begun to keep
Speaker 1: his rifle at the ready and claimed that someone was
Speaker 1: pounding on and jarring his trailer at night, sometimes scratching
Speaker 1: on the walls. He later built a large fire pit
Speaker 1: and began keeping a large fire off night almost every night.
Speaker 1: He was a heavy drinker, though, and I chalked it
Speaker 1: up to his being a drunk. This assumption was also
Speaker 1: a mistake. One warm night with a full moon in
Speaker 1: nineteen ninety one, I laid in my room with the
Speaker 1: windows open. Sleep was difficult due to the bombardment of
Speaker 1: acorns on the roof. We were exhausted from cleaning up
Speaker 1: the logging slash left behind by the crooked logger. I
Speaker 1: must have been leary about something, because I was sleeping
Speaker 1: with my loaded three point fifty seven magnum under the
Speaker 1: sheets on the pillow next to me, along with our
Speaker 1: three legged, orphaned tomcat. Oh the things that can happen
Speaker 1: on a full moonlit night. Unfortunately, until I recently learned
Speaker 1: of nasal strips, I had a monstrous snoring problem. I
Speaker 1: could rattle the windows. How anyone or anything could sleep
Speaker 1: near me was a mystery in itself. But that night,
Speaker 1: that strange cat had decided to sleep right next to me.
Speaker 1: I don't remember the actual time, but it was late.
Speaker 1: The old tomcat awoke me with a terrified catterwall like
Speaker 1: I had never heard. He was arched up like a
Speaker 1: Halloween cat, and his tail was fully bushed out in
Speaker 1: sheer terror. And as he was screaming at the door,
Speaker 1: he was also hosing a horrible smelling stream of something
Speaker 1: onto my pillow. The cat was in a state of fear,
Speaker 1: unlike anything I had ever seen. I looked at the door,
Speaker 1: which had a one foot square window, and simultaneously reached
Speaker 1: for and cocked my revolver. Filling that window was the biggest,
Speaker 1: hairiest man I had ever seen. I drew a bead
Speaker 1: on his head. I was scared, and I was pulling
Speaker 1: the trigger, about to send a hollow point bullet blasting
Speaker 1: through that window, right into the face of that creature,
Speaker 1: which by then I knew from its moonlit feature, was
Speaker 1: merely holding a near human but huge hand to its
Speaker 1: face in an attempt to see just what in the
Speaker 1: hell was making that god awful noise inside that metal house.
Speaker 1: Mere seconds passed as this encounter transpired, perhaps split seconds.
Speaker 1: The creature surely realized it was in trouble. It threw
Speaker 1: up its extra long arms as it turned and ran,
Speaker 1: screaming very ape like, flailing its arms and running for
Speaker 1: the forest service woods. I could see this creature quite
Speaker 1: well in the light of the full moon. In retrospect,
Speaker 1: I'm glad to not have shot it. It was as
Speaker 1: terrified as me and the three legged cat, which had
Speaker 1: continued squalling and bolted, screaming from the room, still hosing
Speaker 1: down its full path with that ungodly smelling liquid. It
Speaker 1: took days of hard cleaning to remove that odor. There
Speaker 1: are a few things that I am certain of. The
Speaker 1: creature was screaming in fear as he ran from danger. However,
Speaker 1: I'm positive he was cursing me for all that he
Speaker 1: was worth. The logging slash he had run through was
Speaker 1: more than likely unpleasant and aggravated him even more. Before
Speaker 1: the erroneous logging operations, they were familiar with the woods
Speaker 1: of my newly acquired property. At that moment, he had
Speaker 1: no time to be careful. He just had to go.
Speaker 1: What I experienced that night was a huge humanoid, bipedal,
Speaker 1: hairy ape man, one who was certainly capable of animal
Speaker 1: and human like thinking. I finally realized why the old
Speaker 1: social security judge was so eager to sell out. It
Speaker 1: was all very clear at that point. The creature was
Speaker 1: roughly nine to twelve feet tall, likely weighing in at
Speaker 1: eight hundred pounds. Long, stringy, dark hair covered its body.
Speaker 1: I could not detect any odor over the horrid stench
Speaker 1: from that three legged tomcat. It had to be that
Speaker 1: tall in order to bend over the railing on the
Speaker 1: porch and have its face against my window. That end
Speaker 1: of the mobile home was perched over the side of
Speaker 1: a hill, right under that big oak tree. I'm a
Speaker 1: very good observer, generally speaking. I was good at shooting
Speaker 1: down aircraft and other military targets while in the Navy.
Speaker 1: As a member of the US Government survey crew and
Speaker 1: a Forest Service cartographer and a military recon photo analyst,
Speaker 1: I know how to gather pertinent details. There are not
Speaker 1: half a dozen folk anywhere in the nation with whom
Speaker 1: I have told these things too, and in such a detail.
Speaker 1: The usual response is total disbelief and all that anyone
Speaker 1: could spend such a tale. But I have indeed had
Speaker 1: a somewhat interesting life. Some have said I should write
Speaker 1: a book. Others simply dread to get me started. So
Speaker 1: I normally keep it all to myself and really have
Speaker 1: few associates these days. I failed earlier to relate that
Speaker 1: while I personally had no sasquatch of bigfoot experiences in
Speaker 1: the Northwest, I personally knew reputable and sane, even highly
Speaker 1: educated people who had experienced such encounters. Most were harmless,
Speaker 1: but some encounters were malevolent in nature. From my acquaintances
Speaker 1: in all the Pacific Northwest who have had such experiences,
Speaker 1: I have concluded that said creature is family oriented and
Speaker 1: indeed raise and populate the world in areas where they
Speaker 1: find comfort and sustenance, much like us. But they choose
Speaker 1: to generally observe us and avoid us at all costs
Speaker 1: if possible, and by all means we should be aware
Speaker 1: of them, but also avoid them if possible. I was
Speaker 1: once an avid out doorsman. I love to camp, fish,
Speaker 1: and hunt, but I will not go into the forest
Speaker 1: to stay overnight now unless equipped with at least the
Speaker 1: largest boar weapon available. Anything less, if used in defense,
Speaker 1: were merely enraged. The wounded creature, the smallest creature ever reported,
Speaker 1: is capable of ripping the largest and strongest human male
Speaker 1: to shreds in seconds, and you just may become dinner.
Speaker 1: I knew well a devout Christian family, all highly educated
Speaker 1: in Washington State. They were not known to lie or embellish.
Speaker 1: They had close regular exposure to families of these creatures
Speaker 1: that was adjacent to the US Air Force Survival School
Speaker 1: in the mountains of northeast Washington State above Cusick, Washington,
Speaker 1: the Air Force made pilots parachute into those mountains to
Speaker 1: survive or die, and were not allowed to have any
Speaker 1: human contact until the course was terminated. There's no telling
Speaker 1: the stories that those flyers could tell, or the instructors
Speaker 1: who manned the school. My Arkansas experience, my small wooded
Speaker 1: plot was adjacent to the Wachitaw National Forest, not so
Speaker 1: much as a fence separated it. There are many natural
Speaker 1: caves above my old property, also all throughout that region
Speaker 1: or crystal minds, many not yet operative. Anyone or any
Speaker 1: creature can definitely make any number of those home if needed,