Speaker 1: This is a bigfoot story from Alabama. The writer says
Speaker 1: that he grew up deer hunting with his dad in
Speaker 1: Barbara County, Alabama. He says, deer season was a religion
Speaker 1: for us. We hunted a five hundred acre family property
Speaker 1: that was all woods and fields and ponds and swamps.
Speaker 1: Things have changed, but in nineteen ninety eight it was
Speaker 1: some of the most inaccessible land around the south Side
Speaker 1: was all swamp except for one nice little patch of
Speaker 1: land planted for deer. The does would move into that
Speaker 1: field thirty minutes before dark, but the bucks would stay
Speaker 1: in the woods until well after dark. Dad had the
Speaker 1: idea to go fifty yards into the woods toward the
Speaker 1: swamp and put a ladder stand there. He had a
Speaker 1: lot of luck hunting from that stand, but I wasn't
Speaker 1: so fortunate. Finally, I decided to take a portable climbing
Speaker 1: stand and go deeper toward that swamp than Dad's stand,
Speaker 1: and I found a great spot that was close enough
Speaker 1: to the swamp to hear anything moving through the water,
Speaker 1: and a good view of the clearings near the swamp
Speaker 1: where I could get a clean shot. One afternoon in
Speaker 1: early January, I snuck into the stand at one thirty
Speaker 1: in the afternoon. I hunted my way in like Dad
Speaker 1: always taught me, typical of Alabama weather. It was in
Speaker 1: the fifties when I went in, but I knew it
Speaker 1: would drop into the thirties once the sun went down.
Speaker 1: There was no wind. Plus being up twenty feet, I
Speaker 1: didn't have to worry about my scent. I saw birds
Speaker 1: and squirrels, and other than that, everything was quiet. There
Speaker 1: was a tension in the air that seemed to deepen
Speaker 1: as the day went on. The closer it got to dark,
Speaker 1: the fewer animal noise as I heard, and the more
Speaker 1: my emotions began to turn melancholy, and it was as
Speaker 1: if nature itself was sad. At dusk, I heard something
Speaker 1: coming through the swamp. It was forty yards behind and
Speaker 1: to the east of my stand. It was the unmistakable
Speaker 1: sound of walking, or should I say, wading and crying,
Speaker 1: waiting and crying. Was someone lost? Well? I turned to look.
Speaker 1: I didn't see a beam of light of a flashlight.
Speaker 1: A hunter would have had a flashlight right. I was
Speaker 1: certain that I was the only person anywhere near that
Speaker 1: swamp on either side of the property, and who in
Speaker 1: their right mind would be this far out in the woods,
Speaker 1: swishing through the swamp without a flashlight and crying. If
Speaker 1: not a person, what was it. It wasn't a beaver.
Speaker 1: They don't make noise unless they're scared, and they certainly
Speaker 1: don't cry. It wasn't weasels, and it wasn't a deer,
Speaker 1: so it had to be a person. And when a
Speaker 1: human walks through water, our steps make an alternating swishing sound,
Speaker 1: and that's the sound I was hearing. And again it
Speaker 1: was crying. It was very still and quiet that day,
Speaker 1: and there was nothing else to distort the sound. The
Speaker 1: cry I heard was anguish, and it was mixed with
Speaker 1: some kind of unintelligible words. It was like someone who
Speaker 1: could not hear properly, to form their words correctly, but
Speaker 1: who had experienced a great loss. And I felt its
Speaker 1: loss as I heard it, and I didn't want to
Speaker 1: yell out and intrude. I just wanted to shrink away. Finally,
Speaker 1: it was night, and with it an overwhelming sense of dread,
Speaker 1: and except for the creature, all was silent and still,
Speaker 1: and I sat there frozeness, tears of compassion round down
Speaker 1: my face. It passed behind me into my left and
Speaker 1: its steps swished slowly through the water as it continued
Speaker 1: to cry and express its grief in some guttural language
Speaker 1: that I could not understand. It was the funeral procession
Speaker 1: of a single soul. Eventually it moved out of hearing range,
Speaker 1: but I continue to sit there for over an hour.
Speaker 1: I was overwhelmed by my own grief, and slowly fear
Speaker 1: of having been heard began to set in, and I
Speaker 1: wondered what it was, or if I'd actually heard it.
Speaker 1: Could I have been mistaken? How could I turn on
Speaker 1: my flashlight and climb down into that horrible, mournful silence.
Speaker 1: As the sounds of the night began to return, I
Speaker 1: realized it was time for me to go, and I
Speaker 1: somehow made my way back to the truck. I don't
Speaker 1: remember much about the walk back. My mind was on
Speaker 1: what happened. I've been back there to hunt many times,
Speaker 1: although I've never seen a buck of a lifetime that
Speaker 1: I was sure existed back there. And now I'm in
Speaker 1: my late forties and age has brought home to me
Speaker 1: how much grief this creature was truly expressing. I've been
Speaker 1: with family and friends who have lost loved ones, and
Speaker 1: their experience was no greater than what the creature was
Speaker 1: feeling that day. I've often wondered why I've never spoken
Speaker 1: of this to anyone before, and I realized now that
Speaker 1: it is a matter of honor. I shared its grief
Speaker 1: for a few minutes. I felt it disrespectful to talk
Speaker 1: about it. Even now, as I remember and re embrace
Speaker 1: that day, the tears come to my eyes at the memory.
Speaker 1: Nothing in those woods could wade through the swamp water
Speaker 1: like a person. No person could move through that swamp
Speaker 1: without a flashlight, and nothing in those woods would cry
Speaker 1: like a person. Nothing could bring me to the depths
Speaker 1: of sympathy I felt that day except a person. Well,
Speaker 1: I think something did the House in the woods. It
Speaker 1: was the summer of nineteen eighty five when we found
Speaker 1: the house in the woods. My friend and I decided
Speaker 1: to backpack in near his house in the Missouri countryside.
Speaker 1: We were both armed twelve gate shotgun and rich with
Speaker 1: a Ruger ten twenty two semi auto rifle. We figured
Speaker 1: on shooting a squirrel or two while we were hiking.
Speaker 1: We must have walked a couple of miles when we
Speaker 1: cut across this old, overgrown trail in the woods. It
Speaker 1: was still early in the day and we hadn't had
Speaker 1: any luck with the squirrels, so we thought we might
Speaker 1: explore the trail that was the entire point of the
Speaker 1: expedition anyway, to check out the land in the area.
Speaker 1: Neither of us had ever gone into the woods in
Speaker 1: that chunk of land, since it was pretty tangled up,
Speaker 1: not an easy place to hike, but we figured that
Speaker 1: deer and squirrel would be plentiful. We weren't sure who
Speaker 1: the land belonged to, but everyone that lived in the
Speaker 1: area thought it was government land. There were no conservation
Speaker 1: signs and no signs to warn off trespassers or anything,
Speaker 1: just a four strand barbed wire fence that had seen
Speaker 1: better days. So that was all the invitation that a
Speaker 1: couple of curious country kids needed. We both had backpacks
Speaker 1: with a couple of baloney sandwiches apiece, two canteens of water,
Speaker 1: our army surplus ponchos in case it rained, and a
Speaker 1: first aid kit. Richie's mom insisted on the first aid kit.
Speaker 1: We both had our deer hunting camouflage on and we
Speaker 1: wore booney style military hats. When we first cut the trail,
Speaker 1: I asked rich if he had ever seen a gate
Speaker 1: or road on the land anywhere. He said that he
Speaker 1: couldn't remember seeing anything like that, so we figured it
Speaker 1: might be an old logging trail from the fifties or so.
Speaker 1: We noticed that the trail to the left kind of
Speaker 1: went uphill, so we figured we'd start that way. I
Speaker 1: remember noticing that the place was quiet, but I just
Speaker 1: assumed that rich and I made so much noise that
Speaker 1: we scared the animals off. We'd gone about a half
Speaker 1: a mile on this road when we found an old plow.
Speaker 1: We decided to check it out. It was old. It
Speaker 1: was completely rusted, with wooden handles mostly rided away. The
Speaker 1: left side handle looked like it had been broken off
Speaker 1: about a foot from the end. It was a kind
Speaker 1: of plow you pulled behind a mule or a horse,
Speaker 1: not the kind you pull with a tractor. Other than
Speaker 1: being old, it looked like it was in fairly good
Speaker 1: shape when it was abandoned. Richie said that we should
Speaker 1: come back with his dad's pick up and drag it
Speaker 1: to the house. It wasn't antique and probably worth a
Speaker 1: pretty penny. While we munched down a beloney sandwich and
Speaker 1: drank some water, I noticed that it was still extremely quiet.
Speaker 1: Richie noticed it too, and when we kind of started
Speaker 1: to look around a bit, the woods were thick, with
Speaker 1: a lot of brambles and undergrowth, but the only sound
Speaker 1: besides us was the wind. It was kind of spooky.
Speaker 1: We started on up the trail again when we heard
Speaker 1: sound up ahead in the trees. It was a sort
Speaker 1: of a grunt or a snort. I looked at rich
Speaker 1: and he smiled, that's a buck, he whispered. We weren't
Speaker 1: loaded for deer, so we decided to just look and
Speaker 1: see if it was big enough to come back for
Speaker 1: when the season came around, maybe locate a place to
Speaker 1: put in a couple of deer stands or a blind.
Speaker 1: If this land hadn't been hunted since the nineteen fifties,
Speaker 1: then there should be more deer than we could take
Speaker 1: in a lifetime. We walked another half mile or so
Speaker 1: without seeing the buck when we saw something in the
Speaker 1: tall grass ahead. It looked like a car, and when
Speaker 1: we got closer you could tell that it was an
Speaker 1: old junk car. It was completely rusted, no paint left
Speaker 1: on the thing. The interior was all gone, and there
Speaker 1: wasn't any glass left in it at all. Looks like
Speaker 1: Grandpa's old Chevy. I said, yeah, but older, replied Rich.
Speaker 1: Grandpa's Chevy was a fifth ffty three and was still
Speaker 1: in really good shape. Rich was right, though this one
Speaker 1: did look older. The doors were still in place and
Speaker 1: the engine was still in it. When we lifted the
Speaker 1: old hood, all the old hoses and stuff were long
Speaker 1: since gone, though it was just an old rust heap.
Speaker 1: We heard that grunt or snort again, only this time
Speaker 1: it was behind us and closer. I grabbed up the
Speaker 1: shotgun and turned around to look, but we couldn't see
Speaker 1: a dang thing. The tangles were so thick it could
Speaker 1: have been fifty feet away and we would have never
Speaker 1: seen it gone get Rich yelled. We figured we'd hear
Speaker 1: a deer running off through the woods, but we only
Speaker 1: heard the wind. This place is starting to give me
Speaker 1: the creeps, Rich, I said, this place is really quiet. Ah,
Speaker 1: come on, he replied, let's just go on a little
Speaker 1: further and see what we find. We found the ply on,
Speaker 1: now the car. Maybe there's an old homestead around here.
Speaker 1: I shrugged and started on up the trail. Neither of
Speaker 1: us was talking. Now by unspoken agreement, I watched one
Speaker 1: side of the road while he watched the other. We
Speaker 1: hadn't gone more than a quarter of a mile when
Speaker 1: we saw a house through the trees ahead. It was
Speaker 1: an old two story place. The paint was gone and
Speaker 1: there wasn't a piece of glass left in any of
Speaker 1: the windows. The front porch was half collapsed and the
Speaker 1: front door hung off at an angle. There was another old,
Speaker 1: rusted out car in the tall grass near the house.
Speaker 1: It was an old ford by the look of it.
Speaker 1: The barn had fallen in on itself years ago. There
Speaker 1: weren't any telephone poles anywhere around here, so the place
Speaker 1: had to have been built back before there was electricity
Speaker 1: in the area, and that was in the forties. According
Speaker 1: to my dad, the place looked like it could have
Speaker 1: been older than that. Though. Rich started towards the house
Speaker 1: and I grabbed his arm. You aren't planning on goe
Speaker 1: in there, are you sure? He replied, Lord only knows
Speaker 1: what we might find in there. They left behind a
Speaker 1: plow in two cars. There's no telling what else might
Speaker 1: be in that house. Reluctantly I followed him. The porch
Speaker 1: was rotten and we had to watch our footing to
Speaker 1: get in the door. The place was a wreck. One
Speaker 1: of those old wood fired cook stoves was in the kitchen.
Speaker 1: There was a porcelain basin, but no faucet. There must
Speaker 1: be an old well with a pump on it around
Speaker 1: here somewhere, I said quietly. Rich nodded and kept poking around.
Speaker 1: There were a few pieces of old furniture, but nothing
Speaker 1: that was in any kind of shape. The old cook
Speaker 1: stove was in surprisingly good shape, but I bet it
Speaker 1: weighed four or five hundred pounds. It was cast iron.
Speaker 1: We weren't going to be able to move it without
Speaker 1: a truck and several strong men. In one room with
Speaker 1: some animal scat, it was big and in piles. What
Speaker 1: kind of animal dropped that, I asked. That's way too
Speaker 1: big for a coon or a coyote. Must be a
Speaker 1: cow or something. Rich said, maybe a horse. Well I
Speaker 1: wasn't convinced, but I didn't argue. I couldn't think of
Speaker 1: a thing that could do that and still fit in
Speaker 1: the door of the house. It also smelled funny, not
Speaker 1: like deer scatter horse apples. I took out my hunting
Speaker 1: knife and poked into one of the piles, and in
Speaker 1: the scat was some hair and what looked to be
Speaker 1: a tooth. Rich, this was a meat eater. See this tooth,
Speaker 1: and there's hair in it too. I heard there were
Speaker 1: bears in the woods around here, He replied. That must
Speaker 1: be it. Shotgun or no shotgun. A bear was not
Speaker 1: something I wanted to run into. I only had squirrel shot,
Speaker 1: not slugs. All I could do would be to make
Speaker 1: one mad, and the twenty two wasn't much better. My
Speaker 1: dad always said you couldn't out run a bear, and
Speaker 1: that then I had to outrun Rich and he was fast.
Speaker 1: Come on, Rich, let's get out of here. I think
Speaker 1: we best head towards home. Not yet, he replied, let's
Speaker 1: check upstairs first. I don't think that's a good idea,
Speaker 1: I said, this place looks like it could collapse. We
Speaker 1: might fall through the floor. Na, he insisted, this old
Speaker 1: place is pretty solid. The porch is about shot, but
Speaker 1: the floors feel solid enough. Besides, it'll only take a minute. Slowly,
Speaker 1: I followed him up the old steps. Unfortunately, he was right,
Speaker 1: they did feel solid. Once upstairs, we both started looking around.
Speaker 1: The furniture up there was all gone. There was more
Speaker 1: scat up here. It looked about the same as the
Speaker 1: stuff downstairs. Hey, come check this out, called rich. In
Speaker 1: The next room was what looked like a nest, only
Speaker 1: it was bigger. It was made of long grass and
Speaker 1: leaves woven together with tree branches. There was more scat
Speaker 1: in this room, but none in the nest. There were
Speaker 1: a few bones in the nest. It looked like a
Speaker 1: rabbit or a squirrel. It was easy to see that
Speaker 1: it was a small game. As I was kneeling to
Speaker 1: look at the bones, we heard that grunt or snort again.
Speaker 1: This time it was right outside the house and it
Speaker 1: was very loud, sounded angry, and then something hit the
Speaker 1: side of the house hard enough that we felt the
Speaker 1: floor shape. What the hell was that, I yelled, I
Speaker 1: don't know, but it don't sound friendly. I pointed the
Speaker 1: shotgun out the window and let fly around. The loud
Speaker 1: boom of the twelve gage was immediately followed by another
Speaker 1: grunt and a growl, and we heard something crashing off
Speaker 1: through the tall grass and into the trees. We both
Speaker 1: took the stairs as fast as we could, and we
Speaker 1: jumped out the window in the living room. We ran
Speaker 1: down the road, passed the cars, and didn't stop until
Speaker 1: we reached the old plow. When we reached the plow,
Speaker 1: we stopped to catch our breath. What the hell was that,
Speaker 1: I asked, gulping down air. God only knows, man rich replied,
Speaker 1: but whatever it was, I'm sure it didn't take too
Speaker 1: kindly to us being in that old house. I was
Speaker 1: just about to open my mouth to reply when a
Speaker 1: rock the size of a bowling ball came flying out
Speaker 1: of the trees and slammed into the plow blade right
Speaker 1: next to us. It bounced up knocked Richie off the
Speaker 1: plow where he was sitting on the handle. Right then
Speaker 1: came the most horrendous roar from the trees. It sounded
Speaker 1: like a line or something, but it was just inside
Speaker 1: the tree line. The roarer lasted for a good ten seconds.
Speaker 1: While it was roaring. I couldn't do anything but stare
Speaker 1: at the tree line where the sound was coming from,
Speaker 1: and when it stopped, I grabbed rich and pulled him
Speaker 1: to his feet. Can you walk? Ask hell, No, he replied,
Speaker 1: I can run. Though About that time, there came a
Speaker 1: noise in the trees like something was tearing up the brush.
Speaker 1: Limbs were breaking and cracking. Rich leveled IS twenty two
Speaker 1: at the area and fired off three rounds. The sharp
Speaker 1: crack of the rounds going off must have scared it,
Speaker 1: because the sound stopped and we could hear something tearing
Speaker 1: off through the trees. We took off like rabbits, heading
Speaker 1: for the spot where we could cut the trail. It
Speaker 1: didn't take long to make it. We stopped there because
Speaker 1: neither of us was in any hurry to go into
Speaker 1: the trees. We were going to have to go through
Speaker 1: the woods for a couple of miles to get back home.
Speaker 1: We listened for any sounds or signs of whatever the
Speaker 1: hell we'd heard back at the plow. After a couple
Speaker 1: of minutes, when we hadn't heard anything, we decided to
Speaker 1: go for it. Just as we were entering the trees,
Speaker 1: we heard a sound from back towards the plow, like
Speaker 1: someone banging on wood against wood, not three times. After
Speaker 1: a couple of seconds, we heard it again, only from
Speaker 1: the other side of us, deeper in the trees, and
Speaker 1: by this point we were so scared out of our
Speaker 1: minds that we couldn't even talk to each other. I've
Speaker 1: been in and out of the woods of my entire life,
Speaker 1: and I'd never experienced anything like this, and neither had Rich.
Speaker 1: We kept up as quick a pace as we could
Speaker 1: in the thick underbrush. We hadn't gone far when we
Speaker 1: heard that roar again, and it was close appointing my
Speaker 1: twelve gage in that direction, and I fired off around.
Speaker 1: The boom of the shotgun was almost deafening in the
Speaker 1: thick woods. Instead of it running off like before, it
Speaker 1: roared again and started throwing tree branches at us. Rich
Speaker 1: and I got a good look at it, but just
Speaker 1: for a few seconds. It was about thirty yards away,
Speaker 1: and it looked like a big man. He was covered
Speaker 1: in black hair from head to foot. The face looked
Speaker 1: more like a gorilla than a man. We had black
Speaker 1: skin and not much of a neck to speak of.
Speaker 1: The head looked kind of pointed, not like a cone
Speaker 1: or anything, just like it sloped back towards the back
Speaker 1: of the head, kind of like the hood on a poncho.
Speaker 1: And it was big too. It had to have been
Speaker 1: close to seven feet tall and had a huge chest
Speaker 1: in arms, like a bodybuilder or something. Rich fired at
Speaker 1: it with the twenty two, and we're sure he hit
Speaker 1: it because it grunted and disappeared into the trees. But
Speaker 1: there wasn't any sound of it running off, so we
Speaker 1: knew it had just taken cover. About that time, we
Speaker 1: started getting branches tossed at us from the other side.
Speaker 1: Without even looking. I fired off the shotgun that way
Speaker 1: and we heard whatever it was crashing into the thicker trees.
Speaker 1: Rich and I decided that it would be a good
Speaker 1: idea to move a little faster. This went on for
Speaker 1: quite a bit, with one side tossing rocks or sticks,
Speaker 1: until we fired off our guns, and then it would
Speaker 1: come from the other side. They're trying to get us
Speaker 1: to run out of ammo, Rich yelled. I knew he
Speaker 1: was right, and it was working. I was down to
Speaker 1: about five rounds left for the shotgun, and Rich had
Speaker 1: two more magazines for the twenty two, and we were
Speaker 1: close to panicking. We knew we had to be close
Speaker 1: to the fence where we had come on to the
Speaker 1: property in the first place, and we decided to make
Speaker 1: a break for it. I fired one way and he
Speaker 1: fired the other way, and we started running. Instead of
Speaker 1: them running away, it sounded like they were running after us.
Speaker 1: Looking back at it now, I think they knew we
Speaker 1: were close to getting away. The undergrowth was thick, and
Speaker 1: we knew that they could be right on top of
Speaker 1: us before we could see them, so we just started
Speaker 1: firing blind. He emptied the magazine of the twenty two
Speaker 1: and I was pumping in my fourth round into the
Speaker 1: chamber when we saw the fence. Rich dove over it
Speaker 1: and came up to his feet. I wasn't much of
Speaker 1: a jumper, so I got ready to climb through or over.
Speaker 1: The crashing was right behind us. I tossed the shotgun
Speaker 1: over the fence to Rich, and he shouldered it and
Speaker 1: aimed behind me. I could see the look of terror
Speaker 1: on his face. I grabbed the fence and started over,
Speaker 1: and that's when I felt something tug at the back
Speaker 1: of my shirt. It only tugged for a second, and
Speaker 1: Rich fired the shotgun right over my shoulder. I planted
Speaker 1: my foot and I flipped over the fence. I grabbed
Speaker 1: the twenty two off the ground and got to my feet.
Speaker 1: Rich fired off my last round and the shotgun, and
Speaker 1: we took off the gravel road as fast as we could.
Speaker 1: We could still hear them crashing through the trees alongside
Speaker 1: the road. Rich and Ice witch guns while we ran,
Speaker 1: and he loaded his last magazine in the twenty two.
Speaker 1: The things in the trees were getting closer. We were
Speaker 1: still more than a mile from Rich's house, and we
Speaker 1: knew that there was no way that we would make it.
Speaker 1: We were already exhausted and almost out of AMMO, and
Speaker 1: then we heard a horn. One of Rich's neighbors was
Speaker 1: coming up the road in his pickup. The sounds in
Speaker 1: the tree stopped as the truck caught up with us.
Speaker 1: Mister Bridges leaned out his window and he smiled at us.
Speaker 1: You boys want to ride? He asked, yes. We shouted
Speaker 1: and jumped into the bed of his pickup. Mister Bridges
Speaker 1: dropped us off in front of Rich's house, and we
Speaker 1: thanked him profusely. He waved at us and drove off.
Speaker 1: The woods stopped down the road from Riches's house, so
Speaker 1: we were safe. We didn't hear or see anything. Both
Speaker 1: of Rich's parents were gone to town, so we went
Speaker 1: in and cleaned the guns. We were both still shaking.
Speaker 1: I went to the refrigerator to get a coke and
Speaker 1: Rich gasped. I spun around and I said, what is it, man,
Speaker 1: Look at your back. I pulled off my shirt and
Speaker 1: I looked across the back were four slashes, side by
Speaker 1: side that had been the tug I felt before I
Speaker 1: crossed the fence. My shirt was slashed, but it hadn't
Speaker 1: reached my skin. We locked all the doors and reloaded
Speaker 1: the guns. Rich went and got the Marland thirty thirty
Speaker 1: and he loaded it. I loaded slugs into the twelve gage.
Speaker 1: We spent the rest of the afternoon watching the tree
Speaker 1: line through the windows. For the next two weeks, every
Speaker 1: night you could hear strange screams coming from the woods.
Speaker 1: Rich's dog went nuts one night, barking at something, and
Speaker 1: then they heard it yelp. Rich's dad went out to
Speaker 1: see what had happened, but there was nothing there and
Speaker 1: they never found the dog. Two nights later, one of
Speaker 1: their cows got attacked and killed. They found it the
Speaker 1: next day, partially eaten and torn apart. Whatever had killed
Speaker 1: it had broken one of its legs and its neck.
Speaker 1: A couple of times. Something even tried to get into
Speaker 1: the house, but ran off when Rich's dad turned on
Speaker 1: the lights and grabbed his rifle. By the end of
Speaker 1: two weeks, everything returned to normal and they didn't hear
Speaker 1: the screams anymore. We told Rich's dad what happened in
Speaker 1: the woods, and he just laughed at us. He thought
Speaker 1: that our imaginations had run away with us, and since
Speaker 1: he didn't believe us, we never told anyone else, at
Speaker 1: least until I decided to write this. Rich and I
Speaker 1: didn't talk about it much, and if I brought it up,
Speaker 1: he would change the subject. Later, after both of us
Speaker 1: joined the army, we drifted apart. Last I heard, Rich
Speaker 1: was living out of state with his wife and kids,
Speaker 1: and I'm not sure where I know. His mom and
Speaker 1: dad sold their farm and they moved to New Mexico
Speaker 1: in nineteen ninety six. As crazy as this all sounds,
Speaker 1: it is all true. The only thing I changed was
Speaker 1: the names of the people involved, because I don't want
Speaker 1: to reveal their real names without permission. I have no
Speaker 1: idea how to find them to ask. I never went
Speaker 1: back into those woods again, not even with Rich and
Speaker 1: with better weapons. I'm not sure that I would go
Speaker 1: back there even now. It scared me that bad, and
Speaker 1: I don't scare easily. Even though that was almost thirty
Speaker 1: five years ago, I remember it like it was yesterday.
Speaker 1: If I lived to be one hundred, I will never
Speaker 1: forget it. Whatever those things were, they lived in that
Speaker 1: old house, I honestly feel that they were trying to
Speaker 1: kill us. Often wonder if they didn't kill the people
Speaker 1: who lived in that all those years ago. One of
Speaker 1: those old cast iron stoves wasn't something people in those
Speaker 1: days just tossed aside. They were expensive to buy, and
Speaker 1: that one was in good shape even in nineteen eighty five.
Speaker 1: If we hadn't been armed, I think that neither of
Speaker 1: us would have made it out of the woods alive.
Speaker 1: That thing I saw that day was no bear. Bears
Speaker 1: don't have hands and don't walk like that on two legs.
Speaker 1: Whatever it was, it damn sure wasn't friendly. I've read
Speaker 1: about the legends of Bigfoot, and that is the only
Speaker 1: thing that fits the thing we saw. If it was
Speaker 1: a Bigfoot, then it sure wasn't some gentle giant of
Speaker 1: the woods like some people try to make it out
Speaker 1: to be. This thing was dangerous. I think that the
Speaker 1: only thing that kept it at bay was our guns.
Speaker 1: And I still say that they were trying to make
Speaker 1: us run out of Ammo that day. If mister Bridges
Speaker 1: hadn't come along, we wouldn't have made it home, and
Speaker 1: we were lucky. I guess that's why I don't want
Speaker 1: to go back Why would I push my luck