Speaker 1: At a book.
Speaker 2: If you'd like to be able to listen to the
show without ads and have full access to bonus content,
that's an option. To find out how, please go to
Dogman Encounters dot com Forward Slash Podcast. Tonight's guest is
Wiley Bureau. Wiley, Welcome to the show.
Speaker 1: Hey, Vick, how you doing today?
Speaker 2: Oh, if you're to Middlin, how about yourself?
Speaker 1: I'm doing quite well, quite well, no complaints so far.
Thanks for asking.
Speaker 2: Oh, you're welcome and that's a great thing. Wiley, please
give us some brief bio on yourself.
Speaker 3: Sure, Vic, not a problem. My name is Wiley Bureau
and I grew up in central New Jersey. I was
born in Princeton, and I grew up in Hillsboro. Hillsborough
basically lands dead smack in the center of New Jersey.
If there was a Central Jersey, Hillsboro would be right
in the center. It's kind of an interesting town. When
I was a kid, it was quite rural, mostly farmland,
some sub suburban communities, but it was pretty much on
the border of like the highly developed New Jersey that
goes north into New York City, that like super developed
part of New Jersey. Basically stops at my town. So, like,
the northern side of my town is very developed, and
then when you get towards the northwestern side, it turns
becomes more rural and you hit the Saroland Mountain Preserve.
And I grew up on a street that was like
right at the top of the Sarland Mountain Preserve, really
beautiful property. My parents had surrounded by farmland and forest.
So I, you know, growing up in one of the
most densely populated states per capita, I was lucky enough
to you know, be surrounded by the outdoors.
Speaker 1: It was like a little paradise in New Jersey.
Speaker 3: So I didn't have like the typical childhood growing up
in New Jersey. I didn't have neighbors and kids all around.
It was basically just me and my folks. And ever
since I was a little baby, my mom, before I
could even walk, would throw me into her backpack, one
of those little baby backpacks that you could hike around with,
and she would take me hiking all through the mountains
and the trails just as a kid. And you know,
I really grow up. I grew up just exploring in
the forest. I had a lot of freedom as a kid.
My mom would just let me run outside. We did
have a rule though, if my mom ever whistled or
called for me, I had to come right away. So
you know, she had me trained really well, and you know,
I never ran into issues or anything like that.
Speaker 1: But as a kid, my town in Hillsborough was very rural.
Speaker 3: There was one traffic light in the town at Amwell
and two O six, and that was the only traffic
light in the town. Today, most of the farmland and
a lot of the open space has been developed. Now
there's a traffic light practically on every single street corner.
So it's really this town has changed so much within
thirty six years. I actually turned to thirty six November
twenty second of last month, and I actually just moved
back to New Jersey from Oregon.
Speaker 1: In Washington. I'd been living between the both states for
the past year.
Speaker 3: I was a wildland forest firefighting out there, which was
quite incredible.
Speaker 1: To back up a little bit, so, I grew up
in hill Borough. I went to the.
Speaker 3: School systems here in Hillsboro. I graduated high school in
two thousand and eight.
Speaker 1: High school. You know, in New Jersey, everyone was really preppy.
Speaker 3: Everyone had like Abercrompie and Fitch, and I was sort
of like one of the you know, a little bit
of an outcast. I you know, I was never really
bullied in high school. I had plenty of friends, but
you know, I was really into the outdoors. And my
senior year of high school, I founded the first outdoor
survival program in high school and that was a really
great experience and the club actually still exists today, so
that was really fun.
Speaker 1: Well after high school, I.
Speaker 3: Didn't know what I really wanted to do with life,
so and I went to a wilderness survival school.
Speaker 1: And it wasn't like any survival school. This was an expensive.
Speaker 3: Prestigious survival school where after completing a year long course,
they would certify you to be an outdoor survival instructor.
And the school was located in Duvall, Washington. So at
eighteen years old, I got shipped across the country and
dropped off ten miles up the foothills of the Cascade
Mountains to go to this survival school. And it was
an amazing experience and I became really comfortable in the outdoors.
I learned to track animals, I learned about botany and
ecology and what plants were edible, and which plants are medicinal,
and I learned how to you know, do hunting in
a primitive style, and it was just like an incredible experience.
I learned every tree species, in plants species in the
Pacific Northwest, and I just really loved that experience. I
got to do intensive camping all throughout Washington State, Oregon, California,
and oh Man, that experience just really gave me this
confidence that I never would have gained otherwise, a confidence that,
you know, if stuff hits the fan and I have
to go off grid, I will be in a better
position than a lot of other people. So with that said,
you know, after the program, I ended up moving back
to New Jersey and I worked at Starbucks briefly, I
became the assistant manager, and then I decided that I
want to do more traveling, and I looked into this
program called AmeriCorps, and it was a really cool program
because you get to try all different types of jobs
and travel all over the country helping people. So I
ended up doing that for two years, which was another
really great, amazing experience. I really got to learn so
many different trades. I did carpentry, I became certified as
a wild and forest firefighter. Through that program, I also
got certified through on FEMA to do disaster relief, so
I was sent all over the country anytime there was
a natural disaster.
Speaker 1: I got to go to.
Speaker 3: Alabama because there are tornadoes. I got to go into
Texas due to some flooding. Then I got to do
wild and forest firefighting all over the South. I was
in Virginia, North Carolina, New Jersey, New York, all really
over the west coast doing firefighting, which was really fun.
And I still hadn't gone to college yet. But while
I was firefighting, I met a bunch of wildlife biologists
that we're just so passionate about saving wildlife and giving
back to nature. And some of these people that was
getting to work with were so inspiring to me, and
like through my outdoor background, I realized, like one of
my passions is, you know, just giving back to nature
and doing what I can to make the forest healthier
because like the human race, we tend to take and
take and take from nature. And like I really noticed
like in this life, if I could give back, you know,
I feel like I'll live a good life. So that's
sort of been one of my goals whenever I'm looking
for work and just in life, you know, I love
going out into the forest, hiking, mushroom hunting, camping, and.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 3: So after AmeriCorps, I ended up basically moving back to
the Pacific Northwest.
Speaker 1: I was living in Washington State. I gained residency.
Speaker 3: Then I went to the Evergreen State College and I
studied wildlife biology and basically forest management, and I got
my degree, and I ended up moving back to New
Jersey again, and I started doing tree work because it
was just a job I had landed, and it was
a really interesting job because it was somewhat on science based.
When I got hired, I learned to climb trees and
prune trees properly. And then I also got into the
plant healthcare aspect, where I was going around in treating
plants and trees for certain diseases, and I also did
a bunch of invasive specie removal. So after being an
arbors for five years in New Jersey, I really got
out on living in New Jersey and just being like
this job really just made me feel kind of stuck.
So I just manifested moving back to Oregon to the
Pacific Northwest.
Speaker 1: So This was about a year ago.
Speaker 3: I moved back to the Pacific Northwest as an arborist.
But I knew that when I want when I got
back to the Pacific Northwest, I want to do fire
fighting because that's a really way you could It's a
really good way to help you know the forest and
help people, and it was just like something I've always
wanted to get back into.
Speaker 1: So a year ago I moved back. I moved into Portland.
Speaker 3: I did treework for a couple months, and then I
found a job as a wild and forest firefighter and
that's what I continued to do the rest of the
year in Washington, in Washington and Oregon basically, but I
was based out of Salem, Morgan, So all summer I
was out in the mountains fighting fires, running chainsaws, and
just doing everything I can to like basically save the
forest out there. And it was an incredible experience. So
right now it's the off season, I'm not doing any firefighting.
I'm still on call for any disaster relief that happened
in the country, and in fact, right now I just
want to put my best wishes out there to everyone
in the Pacific Northwest, and I just hope everyone's safe.
And because there's major flooding going on right now, it's
super unprecedented. So my heart goes out to everyone out
in Pacific Northwest right now. I was actually in Washington
State one week ago, so I missed that storm by
a week. I actually just moved back to New Jersey
a few days ago. So that's basically a little brief
bio on myself.
Speaker 2: Pick Holy cow, wile Y, you sure have lived an
exciting life.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, thank you so much. Yeah, I try to
not stay stagnant. I really love adventures and I love
the outdoors and uh yeah, I just I like to
I'd like to do different things and try different jobs.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so thanks Vick.
Speaker 2: Oh no, you're welcome. Yeah, they can make a movie
about you, about that life you've lived.
Speaker 1: Yeah, maybe they could.
Speaker 2: And speaking of work, from what I understand, you're looking
for employment right now. Would you like to put a
plug out for that? Oh?
Speaker 1: Sure, Vic, that would be an incredible Yeah.
Speaker 3: So I am a certified wild forest firefighter and I'm
unemployed right now, but I'm looking for different work, something
a little less physically vigorous and a little safer. But
I'm in the field of forest management and wildlife biology.
Speaker 1: And yeah, if anyone.
Speaker 3: Knows any positions available, I'm flexible, I'm willing to move.
And yeah, I have an amazing sense of the outdoors
as far as reading the landscape, tracking animals. And yeah,
I'm a very hard worker doing treework and firefighting. There's
I'm happy to work long, long hours and there's no
job that I'm not afraid to do. So if anyone
out there has any jobs in mind, please keep me
in mind. So thank you for that.
Speaker 2: Vic, Oh, you're welcome, glad to do it. And if
anyone listening does have an employment opportunity for Wily that
you'd like to contact them about, then if you go
to the description for tonight's show, you'll find a link
to his Facebook profile that'll make it really easy for
you to reach them. If you've had a dog mean
encounter that you'd like to speak with me about, whether
in private or on the show, please go to Dogmanencounters
dot com and submit a report. Let's get into your
encounters now. Please give us every last detail that comes
to mind.
Speaker 3: Okay, Vic, So I'm gonna rewind a couple of weeks
before the encounter, just to give some background up to
this that leads us up to the situation. So basically,
about two weeks maybe three weeks before this encounter, this
situation happened, I was on a camping trip in Florida.
I did a seventeen day long camping trip. I was
working as an artist at the time. I'd been working
for about three years, and I had a bunch of
vacation times saved up. So we were coming close to January,
and my vacation hours weren't going to roll over. So
if I didn't use the vacation time, I wouldn't I'd
lose it.
Speaker 1: So I took full advantage.
Speaker 3: Of that and I went on a seventeen day camping
trip in Florida. So I had a partner at the time,
and this girl was like the love of my life.
I wanted to marry her and I wanted to have
a family with her, and that's that was our plan.
So she was about seven months pregnant at this time,
and I was under an assumption that it was my boy.
I was supposed to be a boy and I was
expecting a son. So, you know, going on this camping trip,
she completely encouraged. You know, she she was living at
her parents lived right across the street, so she was
totally fine, and she worked from home, and so it
wasn't really a big problem for me to go on
this vacation, and she was totally encouraging of it. But like,
I don't know, fourteen days into the vacation, she called
me and told me that she was done, and she
moved me out of the house, which caught me off
guard because of the day before, she left me a message,
you know, telling me that the baby was kicking. And
I don't know, anyway, to make a long story short,
I was living with her, and I hadn't lived at
my folks house in probably ten years, so I was
thirty two at this time, and she broke up with me,
moved all my stuff out of our apartment while I
was on vacation into my parents' house. Didn't give me
any reason why. Obviously, I was trying to do everything
I could to fix this because I was, you know,
thinking we were going to have a kid, and so like,
I ended up moving back in with my parents, and
it was like I was so depressed and I felt
so defeated, and I was heartbroken, and I didn't understand
what was going on because I had done everything.
Speaker 1: In this relationship. I had already set.
Speaker 3: Up a whole nursery for the child, I had time
taken off from work, I had family members sending me
baby gifts, and my main employer had given me all
this stuff from their baby who was just born or
who was born a few a couple of years earlier,
and so like, when this happened, it was a huge embarrassment.
But after I moved back in with my parents, the
girl was still having me come over and cook dinner
and do all this stuff for her, and she really
was just taking complete advantage of me. So one day
I was at my parents' house feeling really depressed, hoping
that there was a chance that we would get back together,
and she called me one night and said that, yeah,
I decided I don't want the baby to have the
name you chose, and your name's not gonna be on
the birth certificate. And I had I was like, what,
that's extremely hurtful, and then she i'm fessed up and
said I'm so sorry it's not yours. And a bunch
of red flags came came up in that during that time,
because like when I thought about it like it kind
of made sense because yeah, I don't need to go
into more details, but it ended up not being mine,
and I was very upset. My family was upset and disappointed.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 3: So many years later now, like I realized that the
whole situation was a blessing in disguise. I wouldn't have
been happy in that relationship, and it would have you know,
it never would have worked, and it wasn't my kid anyway.
Speaker 1: So I'm at my parents' house and I'm really mourning.
Speaker 3: This whole situation. It was really hard my parents to
accept at the time. You know, a few weeks after
the fact, they totally were on my side and we're
happy that the situation happened the way it did because
they really never liked the girl at all. So my
parents' property, like I said earlier in the interview, is
kind of in a rural area of New Jersey. We're
surrounded by farmland and forest and this this is my home.
I grew up hiking out here. I know, like every
square into the forest.
Speaker 1: Behind my house.
Speaker 3: I've hiked all in the farmland and all the forests
around the farmland, and I really feel comfortable out here,
Like it's my second home. And you know, after living
in Washington State for a long time, the forests out
there are so dense and expansive, and you know, they
can really give you a foreboding feeling when you're out there.
So like, you know, coming out here, I just feel
like I'm kind of like top predator king of the forest.
And I was having one of those mourning moments, like
a morning situation, Like I was upset and I wasn't
thinking irrationally at all. And typically when I go into
the forest, I keep a clear head. Being out in
the forest for me is like gives me a sense
of peace and it's i that's one of the reasons
why I love hiking. But and typically when I'm in
the forest, I have like a really calm, collected mindsetting.
Speaker 1: But in this situation, I was crushed. I was heartbroken,
and I really went outside. You're like in a blurgerent state.
I wasn't thinking rationally. I went out without a flashlight.
Speaker 3: So my parents on one side of the road is
I live on East Mountain Road, and on one side
of the road is the Sourland Mountains And basically you
cross the road from my parents' house, and it goes
straight up a hill into the mountains and it's all
forested and there's mountain esque features. It's a tiny it's
not even a real mountain, it's more of a but
there's a lot of mountain esque features, like giant boulders,
and there's like spring fed creeks, and one of the
creeks is called the Roaring Rocks because like when you
find the mouth of the creek kind of near where this,
you cross over the street from my parents' house, and
you could see the creek and you follow the creek
and the rocks, and the creek get bigger and bigger
and bigger the further up the hill you get, until
you can't see the creek anymore, right, but you could
hear the creek under the rocks, so they call it
the Rumbling Rocks. So a lot of these like really
special like mountain esque features are off trail and a
lot of the people there's hiking trails all around there.
There's a park and a lot of the people that
go to the hike up, but the cirlands don't know
of these like secret spots with giant boulders. And there's
this one spot called Devil's half Acre and there's no
trails that lead to it. I feel like I'm probably
one of the few people that actually know where.
Speaker 1: Devil's half Acre is. So it's not that far from
my parents' house.
Speaker 3: Like you cross the street and like five six seven
minutes walking up into the forest. You maybe ten minutes
and you're at Devil's half Acre, which is this boulder
field in the middle of the forest where trees can't
really grow in the middle because the boulders block the
trees from growing. And there's all these little crevices and
caves that you could crawl into, and there's definitely animals
living there.
Speaker 1: It's a really interesting place.
Speaker 3: Every time I go there during the day, I see vultures,
so there's like a vulturnist that lives there. Every time
I've gone there, I've seen a vulture. It's really strange.
And one of the last times I went there, I
saw baby vultures, which was really kind of cool to see.
Speaker 1: Is they were.
Speaker 3: Super cute baby vultures. Yeah, I've never seen baby vultures before.
But there's all types of animals that dene up in
these like rock crevices, and you could some of these
boulders are twenty feet up in the air, like when
you're climbing on them, your rock scrambling. It is really
fun and it's a really cool spot. A lot of
people that grew up in New Jersey, in Hillsbury, New Jersey,
have no idea that this even exists in the town.
So it's one of my little, happy, quiet, secret spots
that I don't really tell many people about. So anyway,
to get back to the story, I'm really upset and
I just it's nighttime and I decided to go into
the two Devil's half Acre the Roaring Rocks across the street.
In the wilderness school I went to when I was eighteen,
we would do a lot of night hiking and we
wouldn't use flashlights because if you use flashlights, it ruins
your night vision. So I often will go on night
hikes without flashlights to try to train my night vision
to be as the best it can be. So this
time I didn't grab a flashlight. I didn't have any weapons,
no self defense. It was just closed on my back
and me. So I'm going out into the forest at
night and I crossed the street and I'm making my
way over Devil's half acre and I'm heartbroken.
Speaker 1: I'm so upset, and I.
Speaker 3: Basically have a why me moment, and I just laid
on one of the rocks, yelling up at the universe.
Speaker 1: Whymy.
Speaker 3: And it was just like kind of one of those
moments I'm sure all of us has had in our lives.
And I was just thinking, like I also like I
don't know, I just got this feeling like, oh am
I disrupting the forest, like and then I got this
egotistical feeling like, no, I'm not disrupting the forest.
Speaker 1: In fact, this is my forest. I grew up here,
and uh, I was just being loud, and all of
a sudden.
Speaker 3: I heard a growl, a low, low growl, and.
Speaker 1: It sounded like it was cane.
Speaker 3: I And but when it happened, my heart dropped into
my stomach became a little tiny pig, and instantly I
knew that it was something.
Speaker 1: Unusual.
Speaker 3: I also, I knew immediately just my intuition, like something
in the back of my head as if I was
looking at the creature, which I was, and I couldn't
see anything, which was even scarier because like, I'm hanging
out in these in this forest by myself no flashlight,
and I'm being loud and obnoxious, and something started growling
at me, and it was a low, foreboding growl. And
when you're in the forest alone with no flashlight and
something growls at you, it's extremely unsettling. So I instantly
regretted having that egotistical vibe like I'm king of the forest.
And I instantly was humbled and I was like, oh, okay,
I was wrong, and yeah, so I immediately I immediately
felt terror in that moment, like I need to leave
right now, and.
Speaker 1: That's exactly what I did.
Speaker 3: So I was like, Okay, it's time to get out
of here, and let me remind you I don't have
a flashlight. And I was studying in college wildlife biology
and I've i have seen black bears in person. I've
seen mountain lions in the wild, and I've seen coyotes
and wolves, and I've actually seen a black bear at
night without a flashlight. When I was living in Duval,
Washington in the wildern School, I used to have to
walk back and forth from people's houses that I knew
that were in the Wilderner School program, and often late
at night, I would end up walking back to my
yurt with no flashlight.
Speaker 1: One time, I was coming up to the driveway.
Speaker 3: That I lived down and I heard a black bear
and I had to walk past it to get to
where I was going, and I had no flashlight.
Speaker 1: And I had nothing to do. I just had to
walk past it.
Speaker 3: And that was one of the scariest moments that at
that time of my life. But I was immediately able
to recognize what the animal was. I could hear it
was a bear. I knew that even without a flashlight.
I knew it was going through the dumpsters. There were
garbage cans at the top of the driveway, and the
bear was just its scavenging through the trash can. So
it freaked me out, and it scared me a lot,
but I just walked past it confidently and went down
the driveway to my ur. And it's funny because the
next morning, when it was light out, we were driving
up the hill to the end of the driveway, the
little black bear was scavenging out of the trash cans again,
and the bear was actually small. It was a young
black bear, and when we drove past, it ran into
the forest. But with that said, I didn't have a flashlight,
and I knew exactly what that animal was, so let
me get back to the story. So I'm in the
forest and I hear this growl, and I don't have
a flashlight, but I could tell you right away it
was canine. I could just hear it. It sounded like
a large canine, but it was such a deep, deep growl,
and it didn't sound like any It didn't sound like
a domesticated dog at all, and like it didn't sound
like a coyote, and it didn't sound like a wolf,
but it sounded like some sort of canine. But I
wasn't even really trying to analyze exactly what it was
at this point, I just realized I had to get
out of there. So I'm trying to quickly move through
this forest, not trip over boulders. There's multi floor rowse
sticker bushes and I'm walking through them getting kind of
torn up.
Speaker 1: And I.
Speaker 3: Finally make it to my street, the street to cross
over into the fields, and I felt a little bit better.
I was like, Okay, I made it to the street,
no big deal. So I crossed the street and I
get into the field. So near where my parents live,
there's a few fields there's one neighbor next to my
parents' house. So if you're facing the street from the
front of my parents' house to the right is my
neighbor's house and a field at the back of their house.
In between my parents' house and my neighbor's house is
a green strip between the fields. So on the other
side of my neighbor's house is another field. So basically
where I was coming out of the forest, I was
crossing the street and going to the into the field
on the other side of my neighbor's house. And I
get into the field and I'm thinking, okay, I'm probably okay.
But I make it through the field and I get
into the green belt and I'm not into the next
field by my neighbor's house yet. I'm sort of halfway
into this green belt cross about to cross into the field,
and that's when I could hear the whatever was in
the forest coming through the forest following me. And that's
that's when I realized this was something unnuws, because like,
I've ran into predators and they just they don't stalk
you through the forest like this. First of all, I
was keeping a safe distance from me, but it was
following me from behind. So anyway, I'm I'm crossing the
green belt and I hear this thing coming and that
freaked me out more than the gral, honestly. So I
start kind of making my way through the green belt
and I'm running through the field at this point really
really fast, because basically, once you get through this field,
one more green belt and then I'm in my parents yard.
And my parents have a barn, and my dad built
a photography studio on the barn, and at the time,
I was living in their edition where the photography studio was,
which faces the back of my property and it faces
all the farmland. So you know, I am feeling a
sense of fear that I haven't felt in my honestly. Ever,
this this feeling I felt was scarier than when I
saw the black bear at night. So basically, I'm I'm
really freaked out at this point.
Speaker 1: I don't know what's behind me.
Speaker 3: I feel like it's some sort of canine, but it
didn't seem like a normal canine. I don't know, but
I wasn't really thinking. I was just trying to get
back to safety at this point. So I'm crossing through
the green belt, I'm running through the field. I'm going
through the one more green belt to get into my
parents yard. And I get into my parents' yard and
I get into the room where I'm staying, and I
keep the door.
Speaker 1: Open, and this is like, this was my safety. I
felt safe. I was like, Okay, I'm cool. I'm in
my room that's facing the back of the property.
Speaker 3: And I basically just wait there and I could hear
the animal coming through the going through my neighbor's field.
I could hear it panting basically the whole time it
was behind me. What really freaked me out too, It
wasn't trying to be stealthy, and you could hear panting
and breathing as it's coming through the fields behind me.
So that's kind of why I kept the door open.
I wanted to see what this was. I mean, studying
wildlife biology and stuff like that, I am intrigued to
see what these kinds of any animal, any wildlife. But yeah,
so I'm freaked out, but I feel a little bit safer,
and I'm keeping my door open. I'm dead silent and
I'm listening, and I could hear whatever it is coming
through the green belt and crossing into my parents yard.
Speaker 1: And that's when I could see it, and it was huge.
It was literally it looked like it could have been
a black bear, but it had the body, the slender,
longer body of a canine, and I knew instantly it
was a canine. And it's crossing right in front of me.
Speaker 3: And the interesting thing was, until this point, it never
came closer than one hundred feet to me as it
was docking, which was really strange. It kept a safe distance,
but it let me know it was following me, which
was not normal animal behavior.
Speaker 1: And I picked that up right away.
Speaker 3: And so basically it's crossing through my yard and I
could see just the shadow of it, and it's you
could hear. It's at this point, it's fifty feet in
front of me, like if there's an oak that's probably
like sixty feet away, and it's crossing in front of
the oak, right right in front of me. And I
didn't have time to get a flashlight or anything. But
this thing's panting and breathing loudly as it's walking through
my yard, and I could I could see it, but
I can't see any like details, but I see this
thing go right through my yard. My door is open
and I'm dead, silent, dead still, and it walks right
past me into the field next to my house. At
this point, it's about seventy five feet away from me,
and it's just chilling, facing me.
Speaker 1: Not moving.
Speaker 3: In the field, I could see a shadow of it,
and you could tell it was a canine. It was
literally sitting up on its behind. I couldn't see it perfectly,
but you could. There's like a tiny, tiny little green
belt with a little some shrubbery and then the field
and you could see into this field a lot better
than you could see into my neighbor's field. And I
could see it perched up there, not far away, just sitting,
not moving, just and it starts making these crazy noises.
It's like it's like growling. It's kind of growling there
and like panting and like doing this little bark was
like And I whistled to it because I'm, you know,
in my door and safety, and I whistled to this
creature and it stopped and.
Speaker 1: It completely reacted to my whistle.
Speaker 3: So when I whistled at it, it started growling way
more intense and it was the weirdest sound I've ever
heard out of a canine. It was clearly a dot,
not a domesticated dog, way bigger than anything I've ever
seen in New Jersey wildlife wise, and the thing I'm
looking at it.
Speaker 1: In the field, all I could see is.
Speaker 3: This black, dark figure perched up, sitting on it's behind,
looking at me, and I whistled to it. And when
I whistled to it, it stops and then goes, oh,
I don't know, I can't do it, but it did
this like growl that led into a bark that led
into a howl, and it was the scariest howl I've
ever heard in my life. And literally, at that moment
in time, I knew it wasn't a wolf, and I
knew it wasn't a coyote, and.
Speaker 1: Just this shrill of fear.
Speaker 3: I can't describe how terrifying it is when you have
a moment like this with a creature that's that aware
of you, Like this thing was watching me, was one
hundred percent aware of me, and completely escorted me out
of the forest as far as I'm concerned. And it's
hard to describe the feelings that you're feeling in this
during these kinds of moments, like I could years later,
I could nonchalantly talk about it. But this shook me
up so bad that for the next few weeks, I
every time I got inside, I would lock the door
because I would have I'll get into the terrors that
I at night, terrors that I had after this. But
it's just the feeling that you get when you hear
something like that that close.
Speaker 1: It's undescribable.
Speaker 3: Like I've spent I've I've had close calls firefighting, I've
had close calls with mountain lions. Nothing was nothing was
as scary as this. It's like you have as a
sixth sense built into you. It's like a primitive fear
that you get when you experience a creature like this.
Speaker 1: Like I could feel this energy and I could tell that.
Speaker 3: It was something more intelligent than a wild animal.
Speaker 1: At this point, And basically that's the encounter.
Speaker 3: After after it growled and howled at me, I it
walked off into the fields. There were a couple other
nights that I heard the exact same call, but I
had I haven't heard it ever since, And eventually I
moved back to the Pacific Northwest. Right now, I'm actually
in the same room that I was in when I
experienced this but this situation really gave me some PTSD
for a couple of weeks afterwards. So I knew at
that point it wasn't a coyote, Like my intuition is
pretty good, and I knew that was not a wolf.
Speaker 1: There are no wolves in New Jersey. I knew it
wasn't a black bear.
Speaker 3: And you know, in my past, I have heard of
the dog man before because I I'm really into the
bigfoot subject I but I hadn't really ever really heard
of it, like I've heard of the dog Man, but
I didn't really think much of it, never thought there
could be one in New Jersey, and I never looked
into this subject at all. So that night when I
went to bed, I had nightmares that there was a
bipedal bipedal wolf like canine. And in my dream, the
the face is so descriptive I could like I could
describe it, but.
Speaker 1: So basically like imagine a wolf like. So the face
that I was seeing that was bipedal in my dream
was basically like a were wolf face with a skre
down right on the left side of his eye, and
it had hands.
Speaker 3: And it was weird because that night I had a
dream that there was bipedal canine watching me through my window.
So in this photography studio, none of the windows have
shades or blinds, and you could basically just look in
and see me sleeping. And that really made me uncomfortable.
And I woke up that night sweating thinking there was
a bipedal canine looking at me through the window.
Speaker 1: And I got up and I looked, and there was
nothing there.
Speaker 3: And every single night for about two weeks afterwards, I
would have these insanely vivid dreams of something looking at
me through the window, something huge, ten feet tall.
Speaker 1: Looking at me through the window with fingers.
Speaker 3: And it got it got bad enough to the point
where I was scared to go outside. So this unit
that I'm living in isn't attached my parents' house, and
I would have to go outside at night to go
to the bathroom and stuff. And it's got to the
point where every single time I would be outside at night,
I was terrified.
Speaker 1: Like I was like, all right, let me run in
and run back or let me run inside and run
back out as fast as I can. Every time I
came in the studio, I would lock the door, and
I just have these the night terrors weren't just the
creature looking in through my windows at me, it was
also it coming in, and I would have these dreams
of the dog man opening my door with its fingers
and coming in, and for some reason, I just would
have these horrible nightmares.
Speaker 3: So that was a very interesting I've never experienced nightmare
terrors before. I've never really had bad dreams, and they
were just so vivid that it ended up making me
look into the dog man's subjects. So I didn't really
know exactly what I had seen, but in my head,
like they're was nothing it could have been other than
a dog man. And I didn't even really believe in
the dog man topic that much, but I'm open minded
to the fact that there are other things that exist,
and I'm not closed minded to anything.
Speaker 1: And like, after that experience, I know it was a
large canine.
Speaker 3: So I started looking into the dog man subject and
that's where I found your podcast and I started listening
to it. In some of your earlier episodes, I'm living
in Somerset County and right next to me is Mercer
County and Hunterdon County, and I'm listening to your show
and I was like, wow, that sounds a lot like
what I experienced some of the encounters I was hearing,
and then I heard more encounters from Somerset County, from
the next street over from the street that I live on.
You had a guest on that I had a really
intense encounter, multiple encounters. Then a couple of weeks, maybe
a couple months later, I heard another encounter on your
show in the same town, basically on the other side
of town, and that person had seen a dog man.
Speaker 1: And there was one more individual that was.
Speaker 3: Doing research and they said, Somerset County is a hot
spot and that is dead smack in the middle of
where I am living. And I actually had no idea
that this was a hot spot, but according to some
sightings and experiences people have, this is a hot spot.
Speaker 1: And it makes sense.
Speaker 3: You know, if you understand coyote or canine behavior, this
has everything that they would need to survive. We have
an over abundance of beer. You know, a predator could
live off of a roadkill on my street basically like
they wouldn't even really need to hunt. There's such an
imbalance with nature out here. We have apparently have no
mountain lions and no natural predators.
Speaker 1: But that is definite not true.
Speaker 3: So one of the areas that an individual on your
on your podcast was describing, I'm I know this area
pretty well, and I'm pretty sure I was able to
locate the area that he described. He didn't say the name,
but he just described where it was around me, and
I am euston mountain bike there because the area I'm
not going to say the name because he didn't want
to disclose the area that it was in, but he
you know, he said it was in New Jersey and
it was in close to this area. So I have
a feeling I knew where he was talking about. And
I was mountain biking in this area where one of
the individuals said he had a dog man encounter. And
in this park, it's all flat farmland, but they're deer everywhere.
And in this park like there are bones everywhere scattered,
Like I remember just looking and finding full grown deer skeletons,
deer bones ripped apart, and literally throughout this whole entire
like six Mile Park, there are just skeletons and deer
bones everywhere. And it's like for someone who's a tracker
and studies wildlife biology, it shows there's presence of a predator,
like there are apex predators that are living there. You know,
coyotes can take down deer, but they typically will hunt
young deer. But these were full on, full grown deer
bones that I'm finding scattered around this whole park. I
even found cowbones and there aren't really any cattle in
that area, So like that's just kind of really strange
and throws up some red flags for me. It's funny
because you know, New Jersey's the most densely populated staper
kapita and you just don't think that there would be
anything lurking around out here, so it's really easy to
let your guard down. But you know that is not
the case. And I've learned from listening to your show
dog Man there they're everywhere, like they can. They can
live in any habitat that you would see a fox.
So you know, knowing that now, I'm always keeping my
guard up when I'm outside, you know, I'm I'm more
aware if I'm night hiking, and yeah, these things are
around and they're closer than you would think. But yeah,
that's my experience with the dog Man here in New Jersey,
and that's pretty much it for that experience, so it
was really terrifying. But yeah, now that I'm back in
New Jersey living at my parents' house, I am interested.
I'm and it's interesting too. Like I'm interested, I want
to have another encounter. I really do want to get better,
a better sighting on this creature. Though it was such
a terrifying encounter. Since I've been back, I haven't had
any of those feelings an urgency to lock the door.
I haven't had any feelings that anything watching me through
the window, and I haven't.
Speaker 1: Heard any noises other than coyotes. I've heard some coyotes.
Speaker 3: But yeah, so but I'm back here in this area
that is apparently hot spot, and I'm definitely going to
be keeping my eyes out for tracks and any kind
of evidence I can find. But with that said, I
don't I'm not trying to prove the existence of any
of these elusive creatures. I respect them, I respect their space,
and if they want to live a life of secrecy,
I want them to be able to do that. So
it's not my mission to prove that any of these
creatures are real or exist. But I know that they're
out there, and yeah, that's basically it for my dog
man encounter.
Speaker 2: Wow, Riley, that was a rough one. I'm glad that
you're over it now to the point where you're interested
in actually having another encounter that tells me everything I
need to. No, that's definitely a sign of coming to
terms with that encounter you had. But I just hate
the fact you had to go through that first experience.
How traumatic.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, me.
Speaker 3: I mean, I'm not mad at the fact that I
had to go through the experience. At the time, it
was terrifying, but you know it and it was just
a lot to process in that moment.
Speaker 1: You know, like when you're out in the forest by yourself,
with no form of protection, no flashlight, and you hear
something gral at you, it leaves you a feeling that
it's hard to describe, but I could tell you it's
a feeling of terror. It's not a fun feeling.
Speaker 3: And if you when you're in the wild, you know
animals will go out of their way.
Speaker 1: To avoid humans.
Speaker 3: So if you have if you're camping and you're making
a lot of noise and something coming into your camp,
that's unusual animal behavior. If you're getting stoked from an
animal from quite a far distance, that's on usual animal behavior.
I mean, mountain lions will stock you, but they are
so stealth that typically you won't even see them until
they're already till it's too late. So if an animal
is stalking you and you're aware of it and you
know that it's doing that, that's not normal animal behavior.
So yeah, it took me a while to be able
to process it, but your show really helps. Let me
tell you what, you know, hearing so many different encounters
and stuff like that, mine was really not that bad
compared to some other people's experiences. But now after the fact,
you know, I'm not so I'm more careful. I'm more
aware when I'm walking around at night for sure. For example,
literally last month, for my birthday, I was camping in
the Gifford Pincho National Forest in Washington State, which was
an awesome experience, and that is some that's some expansive habitat.
So I was camping out there and I was doing
a bunch of mushroom hunting, and I didn't have any
negative feelings from the forest out there. I didn't feel
like I was being watched at all. But when it
got dark, you know, I was definitely staying close to
my campsite. Definitely not walking through the forest alone. I mean,
it's always good to have a partner when you're walking
through the forest. People run into problems all the time.
Even here in New Jersey, in the Saroland Park across
the street from where I live, people get lost all
the time. You know, a couple times a year there,
search and rescue has to go up there and locate people.
No one's ever gone missing out there, but people get
lost often. But I mean in the Gifford Pincher National Forest,
people go missing. I think there's over over fifty people
that have been missing out of that National Forest. And
even here in New Jersey we have the Pine Barrens.
The Pine Barrens is a million as. I think it's
the biggest preserve or the biggest green natural space on
the Eastern Seaboard, which is kind of a lot of
people don't know that New Jersey has.
Speaker 1: That kind of forest.
Speaker 3: But yeah, it's uh, it's definitely there's things out there,
and it's when you're in the forest. It's really good
to be aware when I go out into the forest. Now,
I try to like set my intentions. I try to
have you know, I try to stay calm and collected.
I try to feel peaceful. I try to feel loving
towards I put loving energy out into the forest. I
give I set my intentions before I go in, you know,
I introduce myself.
Speaker 1: I do like I give a little prayer.
Speaker 3: I feel like that always helps, and if it doesn't
help the beings in the forest, at least it helps
me to calm, calm myself down, be more collected. I
feel like when you're in the forest, if you have
a if you can keep your wits to you, even
if you have a scary experience like that, you're gonna
be more likely to make rational decisions in a in
a dangerous situation. For example, if I see a bear
and it's with its cubs and I freak out in fear,
I'm not gonna be able to think rationally, and I
might run and put myself into.
Speaker 1: A dangerous situation.
Speaker 3: But if I stay calm and collected, first of all,
animals pick up on your energy. So your energy, if
it's common collected, it's not gonna animals will sense that,
and you're gonna be able to think more rationally. So
staying common collected is super important. And I feel like
in that situation where I was out in the forests
with a broken heart. I was putting off a lot
of really intense energy and I'm sure whatever was out there.
Speaker 1: Was picking up on that.
Speaker 3: So yeah, but I'm glad the experience happened because I
was able to find your podcast, and it's just a
it's now that I listened to. I've listen into every
episode and I've really looked into this subject and done
some research.
Speaker 1: I've learned so much.
Speaker 3: Not that I know what this creature is or what
its intentions are or what its abilities are. I do
know what's out there, and I I've learned a lot
now that I've doven into this subject matter, and it's
really fascinating and really fun to research.
Speaker 1: But yeah, it's a it's it's a really unsettling thinking.
Speaker 3: That there is an apex predator out there that is
so strong, because you know, for so long I was
under the assumption that humans were the top predator and
the top apex predator out there. But you know, having
these experiences, now I know when I go out into
the forest, I'm not top predator, so I I that's
really humbled me. But yeah, that was on my experience Vick.
Also wait one more thing. Also after the fact, I
did tell my parents about this experience, and they thought
I was They laughed at me, but they did see
some interesting things after the fact. So a week or
two later, you know, my parents, I told them about
the experience and I said, I thought it was like
a dog man a weare a wolf. And my parents
completely laughed at me. But with that said, a couple
of weeks later, they were I think they were going
out to like do something in the yard. They're they're
in the yard and they saw all these two animals
weigh in the back of the yard, and they thought
they were a deer, but like something was off. They
didn't look like deer, and they like were looking more
closely and realized that they were actually two canines. And
they realized that it wasn't deer at first because they
just they were all off from being deer. But they're
like as high as deer are off the ground on
all fours. But they they said their fur was way
too dark to be a deer. And as soon as
like my parents saw them, they the two canines made
eye contact with them and as soon.
Speaker 1: As they like looked and registered each other. The canines
ran away, and my parents said they moved faster than
any canine that they've ever seen, and like, this is
New Jersey.
Speaker 3: What kind of large canine it looks like looks like
it could be a deer from across the field.
Speaker 1: What kind of canine is that big?
Speaker 3: And my parents they called me and they're like, Wiley,
we just saw two dog man And I was like really,
and they described what they saw and I was like, yeah,
I think you actually did see two dog men. And
then they're like, no, it couldn't have been. I don't
know what it was. They were just really big dogs.
Speaker 1: I don't know. And they were just like in denial
about it.
Speaker 3: And another week later my dad was, oh, so sorry
that last experience. They were in the back of the yard.
The next time, my dad was walking and he saw
the same two canine creatures walking on them perimeter of
the field, and he said they were two giant canine.
At first he thought they were a deer, and then
when he like looked closer, he realized that they weren't.
They were giant, big canines. And he said they acted
the same way as soon as he saw them, and
they registered that he was looking at them. They bolted,
and he said they it looked like a flash of
lightning when they ran away, and both my parents described
them running through the forest faster than anything they've ever
seen moved through the forest. And after that, we started
finding weird tracks right in front of, like so the
studio that I'm living in, right outside the door I
was working in as arborous. It was winter and there's
snow on the ground, and right outside the door that
I was having nightmares and locking because I was afraid
something was going to open it at night. My mom
found a huge canine track and this track was probably
the size of my hand are bigger, and my mom
just my mom found it instead. It shocked her because
she's ever seen that track before, or any footprint that's
looked like that ever in her life, and she knows
I'm into tracking, and she took a picture of it
and sent it to me and said, Wiley, what on
earth is this?
Speaker 1: It's huge?
Speaker 3: And I was able to come back and see it
and it was it was huge, and it was right
in front of my door. And then there was another
time where I was hiking and I found more canine
tracks that were bigger, as bigger, bigger than my hands.
And uh, you know, the biggest canine tracks that you'll
typically see in the wild are either wolf or you know,
some large domesticated, domesticated dog species. And that's one thing
that I've learned through tracking, is how to identify the
difference between domesticated dog, a.
Speaker 1: Wolf, a coyote, a fox.
Speaker 3: I could even tell the difference between all these animal
scats and this giant canine track was it was definitely canine,
but I could not tell you what kind of canine
it was. But whatever it was, it is hue and
it's wandering around uh New Jersey.
Speaker 2: Huh. I wonder what that could be me too?
Speaker 1: Dog man?
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'd say so. Unfortunately, after your parents had their
own encounters, do they become addicted to the topic of
dog men or did it just roll off like water
off of a duck's back.
Speaker 1: It rolls off water like a duck's back. They are.
Speaker 3: Very they're they're I'm not saying that boomers are closed minded,
but they you know, my dad's a Jersey boy, he's
like a city guy, and my mom's a California girl.
She grew up in the Bay Area and Uh, they
just aren't like. My mom's kind of outdoorsy, but not
not like me.
Speaker 1: And my dad's.
Speaker 3: He's a city boys. He's a gardener. My dad likes
to garden, but he does not go hiking or camping
or backpacking. He likes to think he likes to fish,
but he doesn't even.
Speaker 1: Go fishing ever.
Speaker 3: I grew up like not really doing anything other than
hiking with my mom as a kid.
Speaker 1: My dad sort of was always busy working or gardening.
But yeah, no, they they saw what they saw, and
they described as it being something that they've never seen
before and it being really large. And I told them
what I believed, and they just they.
Speaker 3: Don't want to believe that there's animals out there that
haven't been recognized by science, so they kind of laugh
at my suggestion of what it probably was.
Speaker 1: And no, they're not into the dog man topic.
Speaker 3: But they're happy that I'm passionate about this subject, so
they're not, you know, they just laugh at me about
it and make fun of me. That's why it's hard
for me to like, you know, talk about these kinds
of things. You know, But with my background in wildlife biology,
I have a really good sense of what kind of
creatures exist, and my intuition tells me that this was
nothing that should be out here and nothing that's recorded
by science. It was really intimidating and it clearly was
doing its best to scare me. But yeah, so my
parents don't really believe in bigfoot or cryptids or anything
out of the usual. They're not into aliens or anything.
So they're they're, you know, black and white type people.
They're awesome though. My parents are really really cool and
totally encouraged me to do whatever I've wanted throughout my
whole life. They like to poke a little fun at me,
but it's all in, it's all lighthearted.
Speaker 1: So yeah, but it's.
Speaker 3: Interesting because like they it's like they they know something's
out there because they saw something, and they're like.
Speaker 1: All right, Wiley just talked about seeing the dog man.
Speaker 3: Then we see these weird canines like it's so coincidental,
it's just too weird. And then my mom's noticing these
big canine tracks. It's like almost they want to believe,
but they just they can't.
Speaker 1: They can't. What what can you do? You know? And
there's a lot of people like that.
Speaker 3: I was like that I really had a hard time
accepting that there could be a dog man out there
until I had this experience. So you know a lot
of people got to see it to believe it, and
that's okay. You know, everyone has their own truth.
Speaker 2: What's pretty rich is they saw dog men, but they
still don't believe the world is a lot more comfortable
of a place, though, when you don't believe that things
like this are out there, but when you actually see
them the way they did, that's kind of hard to
figure out. It's just a shame. It's got to be
that way.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, I know.
Speaker 3: I just did a road trip across the country and
I met my dad in Minnesota and we were driving
some through some really rural areas in Michigan actually has
a really large uh.
Speaker 1: Bigfoot. I don't know. Bigfoot seems to be like it
must be out there because they were of bigfoot signs
and statues and things like that. But I was driving
with my dad and I was just.
Speaker 3: Hoping something would cross in front of the road so
he could believe me. And I know that like these,
there are cryptids out there. But of course, you know,
when you want something, want to see something, you're less
likely to see it in.
Speaker 1: My opinion, But yeah, they've seen them and they're in denial.
Speaker 3: I feel like you really have to see one do
something unusual, like maybe if they saw them stand up
on two feet, they would be more likely to believe me.
But they saw them on all fours. But you know,
there's just no canines that are that tall in all
fours that I'm aware of.
Speaker 1: No, there aren't.
Speaker 2: And like I said, it's just more convenient to not
believe that they saw what they actually did see. I
understand why they're taking that stance on this, but for
someone like you who had such a traumatic experience, it's
got to be so frustrating.
Speaker 1: Oh my gosh. Yeah, yes, yes it is.
Speaker 3: It really is, especially with this subject in particular, because.
Speaker 1: I don't know, I've.
Speaker 3: Never met anyone else that's really had an encounter in person,
so it's I feel a little isolated in this, uh,
with this experience and any other experience I've had for
that matter. But yeah, it's really Uh, it's really a
tough subject to talk about, so I pretty much just
keep it to myself. But with that said, I really
enjoy being able to have this topic to research and enjoy,
you know, for.
Speaker 1: Example, I really enjoy your podcast.
Speaker 3: Having an experience like this makes it really interesting to
hear other people's experiences and stuff.
Speaker 1: You could really learn a lot from just listening to
people's details about these animals behavior. So whenever I'm listening
to your episodes, I just try to pick up as
much as I can.
Speaker 2: Well, I'm glad you know about the show, and I'm
glad you like it so much. And you said just
a moment ago that you feel kind of isolated. If
you'd like, I could always put you into contact with
other Dogmen eyewitnesses. Just say the word in yeah, I'll
make that happen.
Speaker 1: Oh, that would be excellent. That would be really excellent.
Speaker 3: I would really be interested in getting in contact with
some of the individuals that were in the same county
that were on your show. So if any of those,
if anyone from New Jersey has had any experiences with
the dog Man and would like to talk about it,
please reach out to me.
Speaker 1: I'm I would love to pick your brain. Feel free
to reach out to me. Vic if you wouldn't mind
posting my Facebook on link under the episode of today,
that would be awesome.
Speaker 2: Count on it. You know, I'll definitely do that, glad
to do it? Well, Wildy, I've got a lot of
questions for you, but we're already an hour in. So
with that in mind, would you be willing to come
back for a part too, to do a Q and A.
Speaker 1: Oh absolutely, I'd more than that. Happy too. That sounds great?
Speaker 2: Oh good, Well, yeah that's the case, then that's what
we'll do. But having said that, I can't thank you
enough for coming on to share that experience with us
and to tell us all about these other things that
you've done. But yeah, like I said, I'll get back
with you to schedule that Q.
Speaker 1: And A in.
Speaker 2: Yeah, we'll just hear that sometime next week.
Speaker 3: Then awesome, VIC sounds good. I'm looking forward to it.
I'll be in touch. Thanks.
Speaker 2: Oh no, you know you're welcome and I'm looking forward
to it too. Thanks against mature your time and have
a great night.