Speaker 1: Now one of your pudding. I got a string going
Speaker 1: on here, something just because my dog. Something killed your dog.
Speaker 1: My dog. We're flying through the air over the tree.
Speaker 1: I don't know how it did it, Okay, Damn, I'm
Speaker 1: really confused. All I saw was my dog coming over
Speaker 1: the fence and he was dead. And once you hit
Speaker 1: the ground like, I didn't see any cars. All I
Speaker 1: saw was my dog coming over the fence. Sat, what
Speaker 1: are you putting? We got some wonder or something crawling
Speaker 1: around out here? Did you see what it was? Or
Speaker 1: was it was? Standing enough? I'm out here looking through
Speaker 1: the window now and I don't see anything. I don't
Speaker 1: want to go outside. Jesus Quice, you better hello, hit
Speaker 1: theboddy out here on Quen. I'm out there. I thought
Speaker 1: of a bench about tex forty nine. I don't know
Speaker 1: easy ann out there? Yeah, I'm walking right head uh.
Speaker 1: Chapter thirty seven Strange Encounters. Not all encounters fit neatly
Speaker 1: into categories. Some of the most compelling stories I documented
Speaker 1: were also the strangest accounts that went beyond simple sightings
Speaker 1: that suggested these creatures had abilities and behaviors we couldn't
Speaker 1: begin to explain. From the mountains of North Carolina, my
Speaker 1: own backyard. I interviewed a man named Walter Price, who'd
Speaker 1: had an experience that still gave me chills. I was
Speaker 1: camping alone in the Nantahala. Walter said his voice was steady,
Speaker 1: but I could hear the tension underneath. October of twenty sixteen.
Speaker 1: I'd been out for three days, hadn't seen another person
Speaker 1: the whole time. That was the point. I wanted solitude,
Speaker 1: wanted to get away from everything. What happened the third night?
Speaker 1: I woke up around two in the morning. Don't know
Speaker 1: what woke me. No sound, no movement, just this feeling
Speaker 1: like something had changed. I lay there in my tent listening,
Speaker 1: and that's when I realized the forest had gone completely silent.
Speaker 1: No insects, no owls, nothing. What did you do? I
Speaker 1: unzipped the tent flap and looked out. The moon was
Speaker 1: up almost full, so I could see pretty well, and
Speaker 1: standing about thirty feet from my tent, right at the
Speaker 1: edge of the trees, was a creature, huge, seven feet
Speaker 1: tall maybe more, just standing there watching me. What did
Speaker 1: it do? Nothing? At first, we just stared at each other.
Speaker 1: I was too scared to move, too scared to breathe,
Speaker 1: and then Walter stopped started again. Then something happened that
Speaker 1: I can't explain. I started seeing things, images in my head,
Speaker 1: like some someone was showing me a movie, except it
Speaker 1: was playing behind my eyes. What kind of images? The forest,
Speaker 1: but not the way it is now, the way it
Speaker 1: was before, before the roads, before the logging, before any
Speaker 1: of it. I saw trees that were hundreds of feet tall.
Speaker 1: I saw animals. I didn't recognize, huge things, like nothing
Speaker 1: that exists today, and I saw them, the creatures, dozens
Speaker 1: of them, living in those ancient woods, part of an
Speaker 1: ecosystem we've destroyed. You're saying the creature showed you this.
Speaker 1: I'm saying I saw it. Whether it showed me or
Speaker 1: I imagined it, I don't know. But it felt real,
Speaker 1: more real than the ten I was sitting in, more
Speaker 1: real than anything I'd experienced before. It was like I
Speaker 1: was there in that ancient forest, seeing through eyes that
Speaker 1: weren't my own. How long did it last? I don't know,
Speaker 1: seconds maybe, or hours. Time didn't work right while it
Speaker 1: was happening. When it stopped, the creature was gone, the
Speaker 1: forest sounds were back, and I was sitting in my tent, shaking,
Speaker 1: trying to understand what had just happened to me. Have
Speaker 1: you had any experiences since? No, but I think about
Speaker 1: it every day. I see those images when I close
Speaker 1: my eyes, the ancient forest, the creatures, the world that
Speaker 1: used to be Walter's voice grew quiet. I think it
Speaker 1: was trying to tell me something, show me what we've lost,
Speaker 1: what we're still losing, Like a warning or a plea,
Speaker 1: like it wanted me to understand. From Oregon, I interviewed
Speaker 1: a woman named Jennifer Blackwood who'd had an encounter that
Speaker 1: challenged everything I thought I knew about these creatures. I
Speaker 1: was hiking in the Cascades with my daughter. Jennifer said
Speaker 1: she was eight at the time. We were on a
Speaker 1: popular trail, nothing remote, nothing, dangerous, families everywhere. What happened, Emma,
Speaker 1: my daughter wandered off just for a minute while I
Speaker 1: was checking my phone. When I looked up, she was gone.
Speaker 1: I panicked, started calling her name, running down the trail.
Speaker 1: Other hikers helped me search. We couldn't find her anywhere.
Speaker 1: How long was she missing? About forty five minutes, the
Speaker 1: longest forty five minutes of my life. I was convinced
Speaker 1: something terrible had happened. We were about to call search
Speaker 1: and rescue when she walked out of the trees, calm
Speaker 1: as could be, like, nothing was wrong. Where had she been?
Speaker 1: That's what I asked her, and what she told me.
Speaker 1: Jennifer's voice caught. She said she'd been playing with a big,
Speaker 1: furry man. She said he'd found her crying in the
Speaker 1: woods and stayed with her, keeping her company, showing her
Speaker 1: animals and plants. When she was ready to come back,
Speaker 1: he'd brought her to the edge of the trees and
Speaker 1: pointed her toward the trail. Did she describe this creature?
Speaker 1: She said he was tall, taller than daddy and my
Speaker 1: husband is six foot two. She said he was covered
Speaker 1: in bread fur and had kind eyes. She said he
Speaker 1: smelled bad but was very gentle, and that he made
Speaker 1: sound she didn't understand, but somehow knew meant don't be afraid.
Speaker 1: Did you believe her? I wanted to think she'd imagined
Speaker 1: it a child's fantasy, a way of coping with being lost,
Speaker 1: But there were things she couldn't have known. She described
Speaker 1: the smell, that specific, unmistakable smell that everyone reports. She
Speaker 1: described the way he walked, the length of his arms,
Speaker 1: details that match accounts from witnesses around the world. And
Speaker 1: she had hair on her jacket, long reddish brown hair
Speaker 1: that didn't match any animal. We could identify what happened
Speaker 1: to the hair. I kept it, had it analyzed by
Speaker 1: a friend who works in a lab. The results were inconclusive.
Speaker 1: They couldn't identify what species it came from. Not bear,
Speaker 1: not human, not any known primate, just unknown. How has
Speaker 1: this affected your daughter? She's not afraid of the woods.
Speaker 1: Most kids who get lost, they develop a fear of
Speaker 1: being alone in nature. Not Emma. She loves hiking, loves camping,
Speaker 1: talks about her friends sometimes when she thinks I'm not listening.
Speaker 1: She's not traumatized. If anything, she's grateful, like she understands
Speaker 1: something the rest of us don't. These strange encounters suggested
Speaker 1: something profound. The creatures weren't simply animals hiding in the wilderness.
Speaker 1: They had intelligence, perhaps even compassion. They could communicate in
Speaker 1: ways we didn't understand. They had a history, a culture,
Speaker 1: a perspective on the world that we were only beginning
Speaker 1: to glimpse. And they were watching us, not as predators
Speaker 1: watch prey, but as neighbors watch neighbors, keeping track, staying aware,
Speaker 1: waiting for something. What that something was I still didn't know,
Speaker 1: but I was getting closer to understanding. Chapter thirty eight,
Speaker 1: The hoaxers and the true believers. The podcast meant dealing
Speaker 1: with people who wanted to deceive me. Some were obvious,
Speaker 1: the attention seekers, the compulsive liars, the people who'd fabricated
Speaker 1: encounters for reasons I couldn't fathom. But others were more sophisticated,
Speaker 1: more dangerous, people who'd created elaborate hoaxes, complete with fake
Speaker 1: evidence and rehearsed stories, hoping to discredit the entire field.
Speaker 1: By getting exposed, I learned to spot them. The details
Speaker 1: that were too perfect, the willingness to show evidence before
Speaker 1: being asked, the stories that hit every expected beat without
Speaker 1: any of the messiness that characterized real encounters. But sometimes
Speaker 1: even I was fooled. The Thompson case nearly destroyed my credibility.
Speaker 1: Gerald Thompson was a retired biology professor from California who
Speaker 1: reached out with what seemed like the most compelling evidence
Speaker 1: I'd ever encountered. He had photographs, clear, detailed photographs of
Speaker 1: a creature in the forest. He had hair samples, footprint casts,
Speaker 1: audio recordings of vocalizations. He had documentation going back years,
Speaker 1: carefully compiled with scientific rigor. I interviewed him twice before
Speaker 1: the episode aired. His story was consistent, his credentials were real,
Speaker 1: and his evidence was extraordinary. I was convinced I'd found
Speaker 1: the smoking gun proof so solid that even the skeptics
Speaker 1: would have to pay attention. The episode went live on
Speaker 1: a Friday. By Monday, it had all fallen apart. A
Speaker 1: group of researchers in California had been tracking Thompson for years,
Speaker 1: documenting his increasingly elaborate hoaxes. The photographs were clever fakes
Speaker 1: a suit he'd designed himself, worn by a friend. The
Speaker 1: hair samples were from a black bear, treated with chemicals
Speaker 1: to alter their appearance. The footprint casts were made from
Speaker 1: wooden molds he'd carved in his workshop. It was all fake,
Speaker 1: every piece of it. I pulled the episode immediately and
Speaker 1: recorded a retraction, but the damage was done. Skeptics pointed
Speaker 1: to the Thompson case as proof that I was credulous,
Speaker 1: that the entire podcast was built on wishful thinking and
Speaker 1: poor judgment. Downloads dropped, sponsors pulled out the community, fractured,
Speaker 1: with some members defending me and others accusing me of
Speaker 1: betraying their trust. It was the lowest point of my
Speaker 1: podcasting career. Daniel found me in the studio at three
Speaker 1: in the morning, staring at my computer screen, reading the
Speaker 1: comments that tore apart everything I'd built. Come to bed,
Speaker 1: he said, I can't. I ruined everything. You made a mistake.
Speaker 1: That's not the same as ruining everything. I gave a
Speaker 1: platform to a hoaxer. I validated his lies. Every genuine
Speaker 1: witness who's ever trusted me, I made them look like
Speaker 1: fools by association. Daniel sat down beside me. You know
Speaker 1: what I see when I look at those comments. I
Speaker 1: see people who care, people who are angry because this
Speaker 1: matters to them. That's not a sign of failure. That's
Speaker 1: a sign that you've built something worth caring about. But
Speaker 1: you caught the mistake, you admitted it publicly. You took responsibility.
Speaker 1: That's more than most people would do. And the genuine witnesses,
Speaker 1: the hundreds of people whose stories you've shared, they're still real.
Speaker 1: Thompson's lives don't change their truth. I wanted to argue,
Speaker 1: wanted to wallow in the failure but Daniel was right.
Speaker 1: He usually was, What do I do now? You keep going,
Speaker 1: You improve your vetting process, you learn from the mistake,
Speaker 1: and you remember why you started this in the first place.
Speaker 1: I looked at him, this man who'd stood beside me
Speaker 1: through everything, who'd never wavered in his support, who believed
Speaker 1: in me even when I didn't believe in myself. I
Speaker 1: love you, I said, I know. Now, come to bed tomorrow.
Speaker 1: You rebuild. The rebuilding took months. I implemented new verification procedures,
Speaker 1: multiple interviews, background checks, independent analysis of any physical evidence.
Speaker 1: I brought in consultants to review claims before they went
Speaker 1: on air. I created a system of peer review within
Speaker 1: the community, allowing experienced researchers to flag potential problems. Slowly,
Speaker 1: the trust returned, the downloads recovered, the sponsors came back,
Speaker 1: and the podcast emerged stronger than before, with a reputation
Speaker 1: for rigor that it hadn't had previously. The Thompson case
Speaker 1: had nearly destroyed me. Instead, it made me better. And
Speaker 1: when the next hoaxer came along, and they did regularly,
Speaker 1: I was ready for them. Not everyone who reached out
Speaker 1: was a hoaxer, of course, most were genuine people with
Speaker 1: real experiences seeking validation and connection. Some became regulars in
Speaker 1: the community, contributing their knowledge and supporting others who came
Speaker 1: after them. One such person was Benjamin crow Feather, a
Speaker 1: Lakota elder from South Dakota who'd spent his life documenting
Speaker 1: encounters among the Sioux people. We call them the Big Man,
Speaker 1: Benjamin said during an interview that lasted nearly three hours.
Speaker 1: They've been part of our stories since before memory. The
Speaker 1: elders say. They're guardians of the wild places, protectors of
Speaker 1: the land and the animals that live there. Have you
Speaker 1: had personal encounters many times, the first when I was
Speaker 1: seven years old, the most recent just last month. They
Speaker 1: know me. I think they know anyone who pays attention,
Speaker 1: who respects the old ways, who understands that we share
Speaker 1: this world with beings we don't fully understand. What have
Speaker 1: these encounters taught you? Humility? Mostly, we think we're the
Speaker 1: masters of this world, but we're not. We're just one
Speaker 1: species among many trying to survive. The Big Man have
Speaker 1: survived for thousands of years by staying hidden, by adapting,
Speaker 1: by understanding things we've forgotten. If we were wise, we'd
Speaker 1: learn from them. What do you think they want to
Speaker 1: be left alone, mostly, but also to be acknowledged, to
Speaker 1: be respected. They've watched us destroy so much of the
Speaker 1: world they love. I think they're waiting to see if
Speaker 1: we'll come to our senses before it's too late. And
Speaker 1: if we don't, Benjamin was quiet for a long moment,
Speaker 1: then they'll outlast us. They've survived ice, ages and extinctions,
Speaker 1: and the rise and fall of civilizations. They'll survive whatever
Speaker 1: we do to ourselves. The question is whether we'll survive
Speaker 1: with them, or whether we'll just be another species that
Speaker 1: couldn't adapt. His words stayed with me long after the
Speaker 1: interview ended, a reminder of what was at stake, a
Speaker 1: reminder of why this work mattered. The hoaxers could try
Speaker 1: to discredit us, the skeptics could deny the evidence, but
Speaker 1: the truth remained patient and persistent, waiting to be heard,
Speaker 1: and I would keep listening. Chapter thirty nine encounters across
Speaker 1: the world. The international expansion of the podcast brought stories
Speaker 1: I never could have anticipated. While the North American encounters
Speaker 1: were the most numerous reports from other continents added depth
Speaker 1: and complexity to my understanding, and stay tuned for more
Speaker 1: sasquatch otaesee, We'll be right back after these messages. These
Speaker 1: creatures or beings like them existed everywhere on every continent
Speaker 1: except Antarctica, in environments ranging from tropical rainforests to frozen tundra.
Speaker 1: People were reporting encounters with large, bipedal, hair covered beings
Speaker 1: that defied easy explanation from the mountains of Tibet. I
Speaker 1: interviewed a monk named Tensen Wongchuk, who lived his entire
Speaker 1: life in a monastery near the Himalayan snow line. The
Speaker 1: YETI is not a beast, Tensen said, is English, careful
Speaker 1: and precise. It is a being, a sentient creature with
Speaker 1: a soul capable of enlightenment, like any human. Our scriptures
Speaker 1: speak of them as guardians of the high places, watchers
Speaker 1: who observe humanity's progress and report to forces beyond our understanding.
Speaker 1: Have you encountered them? I have seen them many times.
Speaker 1: They visit the monastery, sometimes in the depths of winter,
Speaker 1: when the snow makes the paths impassable. They watch from
Speaker 1: the ridges, ensuring we are safe. Once, when I was
Speaker 1: a young novice, one came close enough that I could
Speaker 1: see its eyes. There was wisdom in those eyes, compassion,
Speaker 1: an understanding of suffering that surpassed even the oldest Lamas.
Speaker 1: Do the other monks speak of these encounters, we do
Speaker 1: not need to speak. We all know the yettier part
Speaker 1: of our world have always been part of our world.
Speaker 1: To deny their existence would be like denying the mountains themselves.
Speaker 1: From the Congo Basin, I spoke with a conservation biologist
Speaker 1: named doctor Marie Lukamba, who'd been researching reports of the
Speaker 1: Nguma monin, a creature described in local traditions as a massive,
Speaker 1: hair covered being that lived in the deepest parts of
Speaker 1: the rainforest. Western science dismisses these reports. Doctor Lukamba said,
Speaker 1: they assume the indigenous peoples are superstitious, that they're confusing
Speaker 1: known animals with mythological beings. But I've interviewed hundreds of
Speaker 1: witnesses over the past fifteen years. Their descriptions are consistent,
Speaker 1: their details are specific. They're not making this up. What
Speaker 1: have you found? Tracks primarily footprints that don't match any
Speaker 1: known primate, too large for guerrillas, shaped wrong for chimps,
Speaker 1: hair samples that can't be identified, audio recordings of vocalizations
Speaker 1: that don't match any documented species, The evidence is there,
Speaker 1: it's just that no one in the scientific establishment wants
Speaker 1: to look at it. Why do you think that is?
Speaker 1: Fear mostly fear of ridicule, fear of career damage, fear
Speaker 1: of having to admit that the world is stranger than
Speaker 1: our models allow. Scientists are supposed to be open minded,
Speaker 1: but in practice we're as dogmatic as anyone. If something
Speaker 1: doesn't fit our paradigm, we ignore it. But you have
Speaker 1: haven't ignored it. I can't. I've seen too much. I
Speaker 1: know what's out there, even if I can't prove it
Speaker 1: to the satisfaction of peer reviewers, and I'll keep looking,
Speaker 1: keep documenting, keep gathering evidence. Someday the truth will be undeniable.
Speaker 1: I just hope I'm still around to see it. From
Speaker 1: the remote highlands of Papua New Guinea, I interviewed a
Speaker 1: missionary named Father Patrick O'Brien, who'd served in the country
Speaker 1: for over forty years. The local people call them the
Speaker 1: Moo Moo. Father Patrick said they're part of the spiritual
Speaker 1: landscape here, beings that exist at the boundary between the
Speaker 1: natural and the supernatural. I was skeptical at first, as
Speaker 1: any rational Westerner would be, but I've lived here long
Speaker 1: enough to know that my skepticism was misplaced. What convinced you?
Speaker 1: I saw one in nineteen eighty seven while traveling between
Speaker 1: villages on foot. It was standing on a ridge above
Speaker 1: the trail, watching me. Massive, easily seven feet tall, covered
Speaker 1: in dark hair. It made no threatening moves, just observed.
Speaker 1: When I reached for my camera, it disappeared into the bush.
Speaker 1: I've never seen anything move that fast. How did the
Speaker 1: local people react when you told them? They weren't surprised.
Speaker 1: They told me I'd been blessed that the Mumu had
Speaker 1: chosen to reveal itself to me. They said it meant
Speaker 1: I was meant to stay, to be part of their community.
Speaker 1: And I have forty years now. I'll die here among
Speaker 1: people who understand things about the world that my seminary
Speaker 1: training never prepared me for. From the vast forests of Siberia,
Speaker 1: I connected with a researcher named doctor Igor Ivanov, who'd
Speaker 1: been studying the almasty Russia's version of Bigfoot for over
Speaker 1: fifty years. The Soviet government suppressed our research, doctor Ivanov said,
Speaker 1: his voice crackling through the poor connection. They didn't want
Speaker 1: evidence of unknown primates. It contradicted the materialist ideology, but
Speaker 1: we continued in secret. We documented hundreds of encounters. We
Speaker 1: collected evidence that would have revolutionized our understanding of evolution.
Speaker 1: What happened to that evidence? Some was destroyed, Some was
Speaker 1: buried in archives that no one can access. Some I've
Speaker 1: preserved myself at great personal risk. When the Soviet Union collapsed,
Speaker 1: I thought the truth would finally come out. But the
Speaker 1: new Russia has its own reasons for suppression. The powerful
Speaker 1: don't want people asking questions they can't answer. What do
Speaker 1: you believe these creatures are? I believe they are a
Speaker 1: relict population of hominids, perhaps Neanderthals, perhaps something older. They've
Speaker 1: survived in the remote places of the world, avoiding detection
Speaker 1: through intelligence and caution. They are our cousins, in a sense,
Speaker 1: branches of the same evolutionary tree that diverged long ago.
Speaker 1: Do you think they'll ever be officially recognized in my lifetime?
Speaker 1: Probably not, But the evidence is mounting. The witnesses are speaking.
Speaker 1: Someday the scientific establishment will have no choice but to
Speaker 1: acknowledge what people like us have known for decades. The
Speaker 1: almisty are real. They've always been real, and no amount
Speaker 1: of denial can change that. The international interviews painted a
Speaker 1: picture of a global phenomenon. These creatures, whatever they were,
Speaker 1: wherever they lived, were part of the human experience. Every
Speaker 1: culture had stories about them, every remote region had witnesses.
Speaker 1: The details varied, but the core remained the same, large, bipedal,
Speaker 1: intelligent beings that had shared this planet with humanity for millennia.
Speaker 1: We weren't alone, We'd never been alone, and perhaps, if
Speaker 1: we were wise, we could learn to coexist with these
Speaker 1: ancient neighbors before it was too late. Chapter forty. Daniel's
Speaker 1: quiet strength through all of it, the growth, the setbacks,
Speaker 1: the triumphs and failures, remained my anchor. He'd found his
Speaker 1: rhythm at Mountain Pies, rising through the ranks from assistant
Speaker 1: manager to general manager within two years. The Hartley family
Speaker 1: had come to rely on him, trusting him to run
Speaker 1: the restaurant while they focused on expansion plans for a
Speaker 1: second location. I never thought I'd be passionate about pizza,
Speaker 1: he told me one evening as we sat on the
Speaker 1: porch watching the sunset. But there's something satisfying about it
Speaker 1: making something with your hands that brings people joy. No
Speaker 1: existential threats, no government conspiracies, just dough and sauce and cheese.
Speaker 1: You don't miss the excitement. I miss some things, the
Speaker 1: sense of purpose, the feeling that what we were doing mattered.
Speaker 1: But I don't miss the fear. I don't miss wondering
Speaker 1: if tonight was the night someone would come for us.
Speaker 1: He took my hand. I get to come home to
Speaker 1: you every day. I get to sleep without nightmares. That's
Speaker 1: worth more than excitement. I'm sorry for putting you through
Speaker 1: all that. Don't be I chose this. I chose you,
Speaker 1: and I'd make the same choice again every time he
Speaker 1: squeezed my hand. Besides, the podcast is doing important work,
Speaker 1: changing lives, changing the world. I'm proud to be part
Speaker 1: of it, even from the sidelines. You're not on the sidelines.
Speaker 1: You're what keeps me going. Well, then I guess we're
Speaker 1: both doing important work. Daniel's steadiness manifested in a thousand
Speaker 1: small ways. He was the one who reminded me to
Speaker 1: eat when I got lost in research, the one who
Speaker 1: insisted I take breaks, go for walks, remember that there
Speaker 1: was a world beyond the studio and the screen. The
Speaker 1: one who held me when the weight of what I'd
Speaker 1: learned became too heavy to carry alone. He was also
Speaker 1: the one who kept me honest. You're getting too close
Speaker 1: to this interview, he'd say. Sometimes, reading over my notes,
Speaker 1: you want to believe them, but the story doesn't add up.
Speaker 1: Or this one's real, I can feel it. Don't let
Speaker 1: your skepticism get in the way. He had good instincts,
Speaker 1: better than mine. Sometimes he could sense authenticity in ways
Speaker 1: that my analytical mind missed. He understood people in a
Speaker 1: way that I, with my law enforcement background, often didn't.
Speaker 1: You see criminals and victims, he explained, once, I see
Speaker 1: humans flawed, complicated, trying to make sense of experiences that
Speaker 1: don't fit the world they thought they knew. It's the
Speaker 1: same whether they're telling the truth or lying. They're all
Speaker 1: just people doing the best they can. One evening, Daniel
Speaker 1: came home with news that surprised me. The Hartleys want
Speaker 1: to open a second location, he said, and they want
Speaker 1: me to run it. That's great, congratulations. There's a catch.
Speaker 1: The location they're considering is in Ashville, about an hour away.
Speaker 1: I felt a chill. You'd be commuting, That's what I
Speaker 1: told them. I'd need to think about an hour each
Speaker 1: way is a lot. But the opportunity. He shook his head.
Speaker 1: It's a chance to build something from the ground up,
Speaker 1: to have real ownership, even without the title. What do
Speaker 1: you want to do? I don't know. Part of me
Speaker 1: wants to stay here, close to you, close to what
Speaker 1: we've built. Part of me wants to take the leap,
Speaker 1: see what I'm capable of. He looked at me, what
Speaker 1: do you think? I thought about it, about the hours
Speaker 1: we'd lose to driving, about the evenings he'd come home exhausted,
Speaker 1: about the strain it might put on our relationship. But
Speaker 1: I also thought about his face when he talked about
Speaker 1: the restaurant, the pride, the purpose, the joy of creating
Speaker 1: something meaningful. I think you should do it, I said.
Speaker 1: I think you'd regret it if you didn't, even if
Speaker 1: it means seeing less of each other. We've survived worse.
Speaker 1: We'll figure it out. Daniel's eyes glistened. I love you.
Speaker 1: You know that. I know. Now, go call the Hartleys
Speaker 1: before you talk yourself out of it. He kissed me
Speaker 1: and reached for his phone, and I watched him, this
Speaker 1: man who'd given up so much to stand beside me,
Speaker 1: finally getting something that was just his. The Ashville location
Speaker 1: opened six months later. Daniel threw himself into the work,
Speaker 1: designing the menu, hiring staff, building relationships with local suppliers.
Speaker 1: The commute was brutal, but he came home energized rather
Speaker 1: than drained, full of stories about the challenges he'd faced
Speaker 1: and the victories he'd won. We had a line out
Speaker 1: the door tonight, He'd tell me a line for pizza.
Speaker 1: I've never seen anything like it. Or one of the
Speaker 1: cooks quit without notice, so I had to run the
Speaker 1: kitchen myself for eight hours. My feet are killing me,
Speaker 1: but we didn't miss a single order or A food
Speaker 1: blogger came in tonight. She's going to write a review.
Speaker 1: I'm trying not to panic. The review was glowing. The
Speaker 1: restaurant became a local sensation, and Daniel, who'd spent years
Speaker 1: in my shadow, finally had something that was entirely his own.
Speaker 1: I couldn't have been prouder. We should get a place
Speaker 1: in Asheville, Daniel said one evening. Just a small apartment
Speaker 1: somewhere I can crash on the late nights instead of
Speaker 1: driving home in the dark. Makes sense. Want me to
Speaker 1: help look Actually, he hesitated. I was thinking maybe we
Speaker 1: could look together, make it our place, Somewhere we can
Speaker 1: be when I'm working, Somewhere you can record when you
Speaker 1: need to be closer to the city, a second home,
Speaker 1: a different kind of home, not instead of here, just
Speaker 1: in addition, expanding our life instead of shrinking it. I
Speaker 1: thought about the house we'd built on the mountain, the
Speaker 1: studio where I'd recorded hundreds of episodes, the land where
Speaker 1: the creatures still sometimes watched from the tree line. Okay,
Speaker 1: I said, let's do it. A month later, we signed
Speaker 1: the lease on a small apartment in West Ashville. Two bedrooms,
Speaker 1: one for sleeping, one for a portable studio, set up
Speaker 1: a kitchen where Daniel could experiment with recipes, a balcony
Speaker 1: with a view of the Blue Ridge Mountains. It wasn't
Speaker 1: what I'd imagined when we'd moved to North Carolina, but
Speaker 1: life rarely was. And as I stood on that balcony,
Speaker 1: watching the sun set over the mountains, I realized that this,
Speaker 1: all of this was exactly where I was supposed to be.
Speaker 1: Chapter forty one, The community grows. By the fourth year,
Speaker 1: the Sasquatch Odyssey community had become something larger than I'd
Speaker 1: ever imagined. What had started as a forum for podcast
Speaker 1: listeners had evolved into a global network of researchers, witnesses,
Speaker 1: and enthusiasts. There were local chapters in every state, discussion
Speaker 1: groups in a dozen languages, annual gatherings that brought together
Speaker 1: hundreds of people who'd never met in person, but who'd
Speaker 1: been supporting each other for years. The community had developed
Speaker 1: its own culture inside jokes, shared references, a collective memory
Speaker 1: of the stories that had shaped us. People talked about
Speaker 1: the Lucille episode, or the Bobby Dean laugh, or that
Speaker 1: time Brian almost quit. They remembered the Thompson hoax and
Speaker 1: how we'd recovered from it. They celebrated the genuine encounters
Speaker 1: that had moved us all to tears, and they helped
Speaker 1: each other when a witness needed support. The community was
Speaker 1: there when someone was struggling with the aftermath of an encounter,
Speaker 1: the fear, the doubt, the isolation. There were people ready
Speaker 1: to listen, to validate, to remind them that they weren't alone.
Speaker 1: It was everything I'd hoped for when I'd started the podcast,
Speaker 1: and it had grown far beyond anything I could have
Speaker 1: achieved on my own. The annual gathering became the highlight
Speaker 1: of the community's calendar. We held it in different locations
Speaker 1: each year, the first in North Carolina, the second in
Speaker 1: Washington State, the third in the Arkansas Ozarks. Each gathering
Speaker 1: brought together a few hundred people for a long weekend
Speaker 1: of presentations, discussions, field expeditions, and connection and stay tuned
Speaker 1: for more sasquatch ot to see right back after these messages.
Speaker 1: I remember the fourth gathering particularly well. It was held
Speaker 1: in northern California in a campground near the Klamath River.
Speaker 1: We'd rented the entire facility, cabins, meeting halls, everything. By
Speaker 1: the time the weekend started, nearly five hundred people had registered.
Speaker 1: This is incredible, Daniel said, as we watched people arriving
Speaker 1: from all over the world. Look at them, Professors, construction workers, retirees, teenagers,
Speaker 1: every background you can imagine, united by a shared experience,
Speaker 1: I said, by a truth that most of the world
Speaker 1: still doesn't accept. Do you think the world will ever
Speaker 1: accept it? I think it's getting closer every year, more evidence,
Speaker 1: more witnesses, more attention. The tide is turning, and when
Speaker 1: it finally turns, then our work will really begin. The
Speaker 1: gathering's keynotes Seker that year was a woman named doctor
Speaker 1: Sarah Henley, a primatologist from Stanford who'd risked her career
Speaker 1: to study sasquatch evidence. I was taught that these creatures
Speaker 1: don't exist, doctor Henley told the packed auditorium. My professors,
Speaker 1: my colleagues, everyone in my field insisted that the evidence
Speaker 1: was faked, the witnesses diluted. I believed them for a
Speaker 1: long time. What changed. I saw the data, not the
Speaker 1: tabloid stories or the blurry photographs, the actual scientific data.
Speaker 1: Hair samples that can't be identified, footprint casts that showed
Speaker 1: dermal ridges impossible to fake, audio recordings of vocalizations that
Speaker 1: don't match any known animal. The evidence is there. It's
Speaker 1: always been there. We've just been too afraid to look
Speaker 1: at it. What do you think these creatures are? I
Speaker 1: don't know for certain. The evidence suggests a relic population
Speaker 1: of hominids, possibly a descendant of Gigantopithecus, possibly something else entirely,
Speaker 1: but whatever they are, they're real, they exist, and science's
Speaker 1: refusal to acknowledge them as one of the greatest failures
Speaker 1: of our age. The audience gave her a standing ovation.
Speaker 1: Here was a mainstream scientist risking everything to speak the truth.
Speaker 1: A sign that the walls were beginning to crack. The
Speaker 1: field expeditions were always the highlight of the gatherings. We'd
Speaker 1: organize groups to hike into areas with high concentrations of
Speaker 1: reported encounters, equipped with cameras, audio recorders, and thermal imaging equipment.
Speaker 1: Most expeditions found nothing. The creatures were too smart, too
Speaker 1: cautious to reveal themselves to groups of noisy humans. But
Speaker 1: sometimes we got lucky. At the California gathering, a group
Speaker 1: of twelve researchers had a collective experience that none of
Speaker 1: them would ever forget. We were about three miles into
Speaker 1: the forest, reported Marcus Smith, a software engineer from Seattle
Speaker 1: who'd become one of the community's most dedicated investigators. It
Speaker 1: was getting dark and we'd stop to sayt up camp
Speaker 1: for the night. That's when we heard it. Heard what
Speaker 1: wood knocking? Two distinct knocks coming from maybe one hundred
Speaker 1: yards away. We knocked back and immediately got a response,
Speaker 1: three knocks this time. We did this back and forth
Speaker 1: for about twenty minutes. Did you see anything, Not clearly,
Speaker 1: but several of us saw movement in the trees, something
Speaker 1: large watching from the shadows, and when the sun went
Speaker 1: down completely. We heard vocalizations, howls, whoops, sounds I've never
Speaker 1: heard before. They went on for hours, circling the camp,
Speaker 1: moving through the forest around us. Were you afraid, terrified?
Speaker 1: And exhilarated? We were surrounded by creatures that the world
Speaker 1: says don't exist, and they were communicating with us. They
Speaker 1: were curious, maybe even welcoming. How did the night end?
Speaker 1: Around three in the morning, the sound stopped. We heard
Speaker 1: something heavy moving away through the brush, and then silence.
Speaker 1: When the sun came up, we found tracks around the camp,
Speaker 1: multiple sets, different sizes, a family group, maybe watching over
Speaker 1: us while we slept. The expedition report became one of
Speaker 1: the most viewed documents in the community's history. Twelve credible witnesses,
Speaker 1: multiple forms of evidence, a collective experience that couldn't be
Speaker 1: dismissed as individual delusion. The proof was mounting, and someday
Speaker 1: it would be undeniable. The community also did important work
Speaker 1: beyond the gatherings. Teams of volunteers compiled databases of encounters,
Speaker 1: mapping patterns and identifying hotspots. Researchers analyzed evidence using the
Speaker 1: latest scientific techniques. Writers documented everything, creating a permanent record
Speaker 1: that would survive whatever came next, and perhaps most importantly,
Speaker 1: the community provided a space for witnesses to heal. Before
Speaker 1: I found you all, I thought I was going crazy,
Speaker 1: one member wrote in a forum post that was shared
Speaker 1: thousands of times. I'd had this experience that I couldn't explain,
Speaker 1: and everyone I told thought I was lying or delusional.
Speaker 1: I carried that burden for years. Then I found the podcast,
Speaker 1: found the community, and realized I wasn't alone. There are
Speaker 1: thousands of us, maybe millions, and we're not crazy. We're
Speaker 1: just people who've seen something the world isn't ready to believe.
Speaker 1: Yet that message captured everything we were trying to do,
Speaker 1: not just documenting encounters, but helping people come to terms
Speaker 1: with experiences that didn't fit the world they thought. They knew.
Speaker 1: The creatures were real, the witnesses were valid, and together
Speaker 1: we were building something that would change the world, one
Speaker 1: story at a time. Chapter forty two, Shadows Return. The
Speaker 1: Men in Black had been quiet for too long. In
Speaker 1: the years since their last visit, I'd almost convinced myself
Speaker 1: they'd given up. The documentary had aired, the podcast had grown,
Speaker 1: the truth was spreading faster than they could contain. It.
Speaker 1: Maybe I thought they decided I wasn't worth the effort.
Speaker 1: Maybe they'd moved on to other targets. I should have
Speaker 1: known better. The first sign was subtle. A podcast listener
Speaker 1: in Oregon reported being visited by government officials, asking questions
Speaker 1: about how she'd found the show and what she thought
Speaker 1: of my claims. She'd refused to answer and they'd left
Speaker 1: without incident, but she was shaken enough to report it
Speaker 1: through the forum. Then came another report from Texas, and
Speaker 1: another from Florida, and another from New York. Over the
Speaker 1: course of six weeks, nearly thirty community members reported similar visits,
Speaker 1: always polite, always vague about their affiliation, always asking the
Speaker 1: same questions. They were mapping our community, identifying our most
Speaker 1: active members, building a picture of the network I'd created.
Speaker 1: What do you think they want, Zach asked when I
Speaker 1: called to discuss the pattern. I don't know. They could
Speaker 1: have shut us down years ago. If that's what they wanted,
Speaker 1: They could have I stopped. They could have done worse
Speaker 1: than burned down a house. Then why the surveillance. Maybe
Speaker 1: they're watching for something specific, some trigger they're afraid will cross.
Speaker 1: I thought about the documents they'd given me, the Mount
Speaker 1: Saint Helen's files, the evidence of decades of cover ups.
Speaker 1: Maybe they're waiting to see how far we'll push the what.
Speaker 1: I hadn't shared all my theories with Zack. I'd held
Speaker 1: some things back, uncertain how to explain my suspicions about
Speaker 1: the scope of the cover up. But maybe it was
Speaker 1: time to share more. There's something I need to tell you,
Speaker 1: I said, something about what the documents suggest. I told
Speaker 1: Zack everything the Mount Saint Helen's files, the evidence of
Speaker 1: recovered specimens, the suggestion that these creatures had been studied, cataloged,
Speaker 1: perhaps even communicated with, by government programs going back decades.
Speaker 1: He listened without interrupting, his silence heavy through the phone line.
Speaker 1: So they're not just animals hiding in the woods, he said, Finally,
Speaker 1: the government has been actively studying them for generations. I think. So,
Speaker 1: whatever they are, they've been here a long time, and
Speaker 1: the cover up has been going on just as long.
Speaker 1: But it's crumbling now. The truth is getting out, and
Speaker 1: when it does, everything changes, and the men in Black
Speaker 1: they know it's happening. They've been trying to manage it
Speaker 1: for decades, controlling the narrative, suppressing evidence keeping the public ignorant,
Speaker 1: but they can't hold back the tide forever. The truth
Speaker 1: is getting out, and when it does, their entire operation
Speaker 1: becomes irrelevant. So they're watching us because we're part of
Speaker 1: that change. We're helping it happen. Every episode, every interview,
Speaker 1: every story we share, we're preparing people for the truth,
Speaker 1: making the revelation less of a shock, less likely to
Speaker 1: cause panic. The men in Black might hate what we're doing,
Speaker 1: but part of me thinks they need us too, need
Speaker 1: us to manage the transition, to help people understand. If
Speaker 1: the truth comes out all at once without any preparation,
Speaker 1: it could be catastrophic mass hysteria, violence, the collapse of
Speaker 1: institutions that depend on denying what's been hidden. But if
Speaker 1: people are already open to the possibility, if they've heard
Speaker 1: the stories and seen the evidence, then the transition is smoother. Exactly,
Speaker 1: We're doing the work they're too afraid to do themselves,
Speaker 1: and they're watching because they need to know it's working.
Speaker 1: Zach was quiet for a long moment. That's a hell
Speaker 1: of a theory. It's the only one that makes sense.
Speaker 1: They could have destroyed us, they chose not to. There
Speaker 1: has to be a reason. So what do we do.
Speaker 1: We keep going, We prepare for what's coming, and we
Speaker 1: hope that when the truth finally comes out, we've done
Speaker 1: enough to make it manageable. The surveillance continued, but no
Speaker 1: direct action was taken. I warned the community to be cautious,
Speaker 1: to report any un usual contacts, to avoid sharing sensitive
Speaker 1: personal information, to remember that we were being watched. The
Speaker 1: reports of visits tapered off after a few months, but
Speaker 1: I knew the watching hadn't stopped. It had just become
Speaker 1: more subtle. And through it all, I kept working. The
Speaker 1: interviews continued, the episodes aired, the community grew. Whatever the
Speaker 1: men in black were planning, whatever they were waiting for,
Speaker 1: I couldn't let their presence paralyze me. The work was
Speaker 1: too important. The truth was coming out, and I needed
Speaker 1: to be ready. Chapter forty three, Voices in the Darkness,
Speaker 1: the five hundredth episode of Sasquatch Odyssey, aired on a
Speaker 1: Thursday evening in April. Five hundred episodes, five hundred stories
Speaker 1: of encounters, of wonder, of fear, of connection with something
Speaker 1: beyond our everyday understanding. I'd started the podcast sitting alone
Speaker 1: in a spare bedroom with a cheap microphone. Now it
Speaker 1: reached millions of people around the world. For the anniversary episode,
Speaker 1: I decided to do something different. Instead of a single interview,
Speaker 1: I compiled clips from fifty of the most impactful stories
Speaker 1: we'd shared over the years. Lucille Marsh with her riverstone,
Speaker 1: Bobby Dean Carver and his coon hunting dogs, Margaret Lenkevist
Speaker 1: in the frozen silence of the Boundary Waters, Gloria Rayas
Speaker 1: and the young Navajo man in the hospital, Mary Catherine
Speaker 1: O'Brien and the creature at her dying husband's window. Fifty
Speaker 1: voices speaking across decades, across continents, across the vast gulf
Speaker 1: that separated their experiences from the world's disbelief. And at
Speaker 1: the end I added something new, my own story told
Speaker 1: in full for the first time. My name is Brian Patterson.
Speaker 1: I recorded sitting in the studio I'd rebuilt after the fire,
Speaker 1: and I've been chasing the truth about Sasquatch since I
Speaker 1: was twelve years old. It started in Lyrely, Georgia in
Speaker 1: nineteen eighty six. My family had just moved moved to
Speaker 1: a new property eighty acres of woods and fields. At
Speaker 1: the end of a long dirt road. I thought it
Speaker 1: was paradise. I didn't know what was waiting for me
Speaker 1: in those trees. The encounter happened in October. I was
Speaker 1: exploring the back corner of our property, a place where
Speaker 1: the woods grew thick, and the feeling of wrongness was strongest.
Speaker 1: I heard it before I saw anything cuffing, growling, something
Speaker 1: breathing in the underbrush. And then came the sounds of movement,
Speaker 1: heavy footsteps, bipedal footsteps, moving toward me through the trees.
Speaker 1: I never saw the creature. It stayed hidden, invisible in
Speaker 1: the dense undergrowth. But I felt it, I heard it.
Speaker 1: I knew with a certainty that has never wavered that
Speaker 1: something was there, something large, something intelligent, something that chose
Speaker 1: to let me go when it could easily have done otherwise.
Speaker 1: That encounter changed my life. It set me on a
Speaker 1: path that led through decades of searching, through a career
Speaker 1: in law enforcement, through the investigation that made national news,
Speaker 1: and finally to this podcast, five hundred episodes of other
Speaker 1: people's stories trying to understand my own. I still don't
Speaker 1: have all the answers. I don't know what these creatures are,
Speaker 1: where they came from or what they want from us.
Speaker 1: But I know they're real. I know they're watching, and
Speaker 1: I know that someday, maybe soon, maybe not, the world
Speaker 1: will finally have to face the truth that witnesses like
Speaker 1: me have been caring for generations until that day. I'll
Speaker 1: keep recording, keep listening, keep sharing the stories that deserve
Speaker 1: to be heard, because that's what this is really about.
Speaker 1: Not proof, not vindication, but connection, human beings reaching out
Speaker 1: to each other across the darkness, saying I saw something,
Speaker 1: I experience something I need someone to believe me. I
Speaker 1: believe you, all of you, and I'm honored to have
Speaker 1: shared your stories with the world. Thank you for five
Speaker 1: hundred episodes. Here's to five hundred more. The response to
Speaker 1: the anniversary episode exceeded anything we'd experienced before download spiked.
Speaker 1: Comments flooded in from longtime listeners who'd been moved to
Speaker 1: tears from new listeners who discovered the podcast through the milestone,
Speaker 1: from witnesses who'd never reached out before but felt compelled
Speaker 1: to share their own stories. Mainstream media picked up the
Speaker 1: anniversary with features in several major outlets. The coverage was
Speaker 1: mostly respectful, a far cry from the mockery we'd faced
Speaker 1: in the early years. The world was changing, the stigma
Speaker 1: was fading, the truth was becoming harder to ignore, and
Speaker 1: in the community form someone posted a message that captured
Speaker 1: everything I felt. Five hundred episodes, five hundred stories of
Speaker 1: people who saw something impossible and had the courage to
Speaker 1: speak up, five hundred pieces of evidence that the world
Speaker 1: is stranger than we've been taught to believe. For more
Speaker 1: sasquatch ot to see. We'll be right back after these messages. Brian,
Speaker 1: You've built something incredible here, a community, a movement, a
Speaker 1: lighthouse for everyone who's been lost in the darkness of disbelief.
Speaker 1: Whatever comes next, know that you've changed lives, You've changed
Speaker 1: the world, and we're all grateful. I read the message
Speaker 1: three times, tears streaming down my face. This was why
Speaker 1: I did this work. This was all any of it
Speaker 1: had ever been about. Chapter forty four, the Expedition. The
Speaker 1: message arrived on a Sunday evening through a channel I
Speaker 1: hadn't used in years. It came from Zach, encrypted and urgent,
Speaker 1: new evidence, major need to meet in person, bring everything.
Speaker 1: I stared at the screen, my heart pounding. After all
Speaker 1: the years of searching, of documenting, of hoping for definitive proof.
Speaker 1: Could this finally be it? I called Daniel first. Zach
Speaker 1: found something. I said, something big. He wants to meet
Speaker 1: at the research site where the area near where Austin disappeared,
Speaker 1: same region we've been monitoring for years. But this time
Speaker 1: I took a breath. This time, he says he has
Speaker 1: something that could change everything. I'm coming with you, Daniel.
Speaker 1: Don't argue with me. I've stood beside you through everything.
Speaker 1: I'm not staying behind for this. I wanted to protect him,
Speaker 1: wanted to keep him safe from whatever was about to unfold.
Speaker 1: But I knew that look in his voice, that determination
Speaker 1: that had carried us through years of struggle and fear
Speaker 1: and hope. Okay, I said, but we need to bring
Speaker 1: the team. Amanda, her cameraman, This needs to be documented.
Speaker 1: Whatever it is. I'll make the calls. You pack the gear.
Speaker 1: We gathered at our mountain house the next morning. Amanda
Speaker 1: had arrived overnight, red eyed from a cross country flight,
Speaker 1: but vibrating with anticipation. Her cameraman Tom was already checking equipment,
Speaker 1: making sure every battery was charged, every memory card was empty.
Speaker 1: Zack had driven up from the ranger station, his car
Speaker 1: loaded with his own documentation gear. What did you find,
Speaker 1: I asked. As we gathered around the kitchen table. Zach
Speaker 1: spread out a collection of photographs and documents. Three nights ago,
Speaker 1: motion sensors I'd placed in a remote section of the
Speaker 1: forest were triggered multiple times. Something large moving through a
Speaker 1: specific corridor could be bears, Amanda said, elk. Look at
Speaker 1: the thermal signatures. Zack pointed to a series of images.
Speaker 1: The heat distribution is wrong for any known animal. And
Speaker 1: look here, he pointed to another image, bipedal gait clear
Speaker 1: as day. I studied the images. The shapes were indistinct,
Speaker 1: captured at the edge of the camera's range, but the
Speaker 1: movement patterns, the heat signatures, the apparent size. We need
Speaker 1: to go there, I said. Set up more cameras, get
Speaker 1: better footage. That's why I called you. This is the
Speaker 1: best activity I've documented in twenty years. If we're going
Speaker 1: to get definitive proof, this is our chance. When do
Speaker 1: we leave now? Before they move on? These creatures don't
Speaker 1: stay in one place for long. The journey into the
Speaker 1: forest felt charged with possibility. The area Zach had identified
Speaker 1: was deep in the back country. Hours from any road
Speaker 1: or trail. We hiked through old growth forest, the trees
Speaker 1: towering around us like cathedral columns. Birds fell silent as
Speaker 1: we passed. The air grew heavy with anticipation. This is
Speaker 1: close to where Austin's camera was found, Zack said quietly,
Speaker 1: as we approached his monitoring site about two miles north.
Speaker 1: Whatever's using this corridor, They've been here for a long time.
Speaker 1: We set up camp as the sun began to set,
Speaker 1: placing additional cameras and monitoring a whipment in a wide perimeter.
Speaker 1: Amanda and Tom documented everything, our preparations, the equipment, the
Speaker 1: forest itself. In the fading light. That night, We waited,
Speaker 1: and around midnight the sensors began to trigger. The footage
Speaker 1: we captured wasn't definitive, it never was with these creatures,
Speaker 1: but it was compelling. Three distinct heat signatures moving through
Speaker 1: the forest about two hundred yards from our camp, large
Speaker 1: bipedal moving with a coordination that suggested intelligence, communication purpose.
Speaker 1: We heard them too, the same vocalizations I'd heard throughout
Speaker 1: my years of research, howls and wood knocks, and that strange,
Speaker 1: almost linguistic chattering that defied explanation. They knew we were there.
Speaker 1: They were watching us as we watched them, and at
Speaker 1: one point, just before dawn, I saw something through my
Speaker 1: night vision scope, a shape standing at the edge of
Speaker 1: a clearing, looking directly at me. It was only for
Speaker 1: a moment, then it turned and disappeared into the trees.
Speaker 1: Did you get that, I whispered to Tom. He was
Speaker 1: already checking his camera. I think, so let me. He stopped.
Speaker 1: Oh my god. The footage showed a figure, tall, broad shouldered,
Speaker 1: covered in dark hair. The face was obscured by distance
Speaker 1: and shadow, but the basic outline was unmistakable. Not a bear,
Speaker 1: not an elk, not a human in a suit, something else.
Speaker 1: We stayed in the forest for three more days, capturing
Speaker 1: more evidence, audio recordings of vocalizations, additional thermal footage, footprint
Speaker 1: casts from the muddy banks of a nearby stream. None
Speaker 1: of it was the clear, undeniable proof I'd been searching
Speaker 1: for my entire life, But taken together, it was the
Speaker 1: strongest case yet assembled, the kind of evidence that would
Speaker 1: make even skeptics pause. This is going to change things,
Speaker 1: Amanda said, as we hiked back to our vehicles. When
Speaker 1: this airs, when people see what we've captured, they'll still
Speaker 1: deny it, I said, some of them they always do,
Speaker 1: but others won't. Others will look at this and finally
Speaker 1: understand that something is out there, that the witnesses have
Speaker 1: been telling the truth all along. I thought about Austin,
Speaker 1: about whether he was still alive somewhere in these mountains,
Speaker 1: living among the creatures he'd gone to find, or whether
Speaker 1: he'd met a different fate, one that would remain a
Speaker 1: mystery forever. We'll keep searching, I said. The work isn't done.
Speaker 1: Will it ever be. I don't know, maybe not, but
Speaker 1: that's okay. The search is the point. The truth is
Speaker 1: the point. Everything else is just details. Daniel took my
Speaker 1: hand as we emerged from the forest into the late
Speaker 1: afternoon sun. The mountains stretched out before us, vast and
Speaker 1: ancient and full of secrets. Whatever happens, he said, you've
Speaker 1: done something remarkable. You've given people hope. I've just told stories.
Speaker 1: I said, that's what hope is, stories that show us
Speaker 1: the world is bigger than we thought, stranger, more wonderful.
Speaker 1: He squeezed my hand. You've shown people that the mystery
Speaker 1: is still out there, that there are still things waiting
Speaker 1: to be discovered. I looked back at the forest, at
Speaker 1: the trees that held their secrets so close. Book two,
Speaker 1: I said, quietly, what this is just the beginning. There's
Speaker 1: so much more to find, so much more to understand.
Speaker 1: I smiled. The odyssey continues, and it did to do
Speaker 1: the sa