Speaker 1: This took place in late twenty and eighteen. It started
Speaker 1: in deep fall and continued into late December. I live
Speaker 1: in northeastern Ohio and my dogs were going ballistic every
Speaker 1: night for over two months in late twenty and eighteen.
Speaker 1: I had seen signs of the presence of something, but
Speaker 1: was unsure of what it was, and to be honest,
Speaker 1: I really wasn't paying attention and it didn't occur to
Speaker 1: me at the time what I was seeing. I was
Speaker 1: mowing the grass in the very late fall of twenty
Speaker 1: eighteen when I passed a large, matted down spot in
Speaker 1: the tall grass. It was probably about fifteen feet in diameter.
Speaker 1: I didn't see any tracks or trails leading into or
Speaker 1: out of it, so I brushed it off as deer habitat.
Speaker 1: Every single night, within five minutes of the lights getting
Speaker 1: turned off, my German shepherds would go to the door
Speaker 1: and peer out and growl and start barking. That went
Speaker 1: on for what seemed like it was going to be
Speaker 1: an eternity, and I didn't think I was ever going
Speaker 1: to get any sleep. I never heard any sounds, and
Speaker 1: I don't have a sense of smell. It's a hereditary thing.
Speaker 1: My grandfather couldn't smell, and my brother's daughter can't either,
Speaker 1: so I didn't smell anything. And winter was kicking in.
Speaker 1: It was getting cold. The dogs still weren't letting up,
Speaker 1: and during the daytime I kept a pretty good eye
Speaker 1: on them because we have had a bunch of missing
Speaker 1: cats and dogs in this area recently. The same thing
Speaker 1: happened back in the eighties and a couple of guys
Speaker 1: were caught stealing people's pets and selling them on the
Speaker 1: market for animal food and all kinds of nasty stuff.
Speaker 1: So that's what I figured was going on. I was
Speaker 1: very watchful, and I would call them in several times
Speaker 1: throughout the day and in the evening, just to keep
Speaker 1: an eye on them. Then I saw a video where
Speaker 1: a man's dog became the target of a sisquatch because
Speaker 1: the dog was constantly giving away its position, and something
Speaker 1: inside me clicked and I just knew there was more
Speaker 1: to this than just a small herd of deer sleeping
Speaker 1: there and traversing back and forth. So I decided to
Speaker 1: load up a rifle and leave it by my bed
Speaker 1: until I managed to get rid of whatever was coming around.
Speaker 1: My wife insisted that it was a coyote, because the
Speaker 1: year before we had a rather large one come into
Speaker 1: the area in broad daylight and it wasn't at all
Speaker 1: afraid of us. The rifle I was using had a
Speaker 1: red laser sight on the end of it and a
Speaker 1: dot site up top for quick tactics and a pinch.
Speaker 1: Then on December second, twenty eighteen, around two am, I
Speaker 1: turned out the lights and I laid down in bed
Speaker 1: to wait, And sure enough, within minutes, my dogs rushed
Speaker 1: to the door and started barking like crazy. But this
Speaker 1: time they were growling like I've never heard them growl before,
Speaker 1: so I knew something was out there. I sat up
Speaker 1: part way in bed with the rifle in hand, and
Speaker 1: I waited and watched, and sure enough, in the midst
Speaker 1: of that cold wind and rainstorm, I saw an almost
Speaker 1: man shaped, very dark outline figure step quietly and smoothly
Speaker 1: up to the kennel fence and stand there for a moment.
Speaker 1: Our kennel is six feet tall, and this creature was
Speaker 1: a good two and a half feet taller and was
Speaker 1: about four feet wide at the shoulders. I couldn't make
Speaker 1: out any details, just its basic shape. I think we
Speaker 1: call those blob squatches I moved to put the rifle
Speaker 1: up to my shoulder, and it obviously saw me because
Speaker 1: it backed off into the darkness again right away, but
Speaker 1: still silently and really smoothly, almost like it was floating.
Speaker 1: It rained like the days of Noah for a couple
Speaker 1: of days, and I never thought to even look for
Speaker 1: prints in the mud, but I'm pretty sure there weren't
Speaker 1: any after the heavy rains. Anyway. Well, it's not much
Speaker 1: of an encounter, but still enough to make me sleep
Speaker 1: with a rifle within arm's reach. Not much puts fear
Speaker 1: into me, and this squatch didn't either, but it probably
Speaker 1: would have if things would have gotten ugly, and I
Speaker 1: would be reporting a dead sasquatch because I won't miss
Speaker 1: when it comes to protecting my family, and my dogs
Speaker 1: are like my kids. I love them that much, so
Speaker 1: they get the same protection from me as my son
Speaker 1: and wife would. It was not quite daylight on an
Speaker 1: early summer morning in the mouth of the I'm never
Speaker 1: gonna pronounce this right. It's Coquahaala, Coquahala and Fraser Rivers
Speaker 1: in Hope, British Columbia. The tributary was taking on water
Speaker 1: because the Fraser was high and the salmon were running.
Speaker 1: The river had quite a few dying salmon that were spawning.
Speaker 1: I was there to take pictures of the wildlife, so
Speaker 1: I pulled out my small director's chair and sat quietly
Speaker 1: at the mouth. You have a director's chair. I want
Speaker 1: a director's chair. How do you get one of those?
Speaker 1: Across the river was a game trail where I have
Speaker 1: seen mule deer, white tail coyodies, and even the odd
Speaker 1: bobcat in the past, and I was sure I'd have
Speaker 1: luck that day. The sun was just beginning to creep
Speaker 1: over Mount ogle Ogilvy Ogilvy when two coyotes seventy five
Speaker 1: yards away from me began yipping. It's not unusual to
Speaker 1: hear coyotes up there, but they sounded frantic, like dogs
Speaker 1: when a stranger has come into your yard. Curious, I
Speaker 1: looked over in the direction where they were yipping. Squatting
Speaker 1: down in the long grass at the water's edge. Another
Speaker 1: fifty yards beyond them was a huge figure. At first
Speaker 1: I thought it was a bear, and then it turned
Speaker 1: its attention on me and it stood up on two left.
Speaker 1: A cold chill shot up my spine as the hair
Speaker 1: on the back of my neck stood on end, and
Speaker 1: I was frozen and shocked staring at a massive male sisquatch.
Speaker 1: Behind him were some older saplings that were roughly eight
Speaker 1: feet high. They came up to his chest, and he
Speaker 1: was covered in dirty blonde colored hair, and he had
Speaker 1: a dome shaped head and a very human looking face.
Speaker 1: His nose was a bit whiter than a man's, and
Speaker 1: it looked like he didn't have a neck. We stared
Speaker 1: at each other for a good twenty seconds before he
Speaker 1: let out an unbelievably loud scream that was strangely high
Speaker 1: pitch for something that large. I'll never forget the look
Speaker 1: of disgust he gave me before he did something totally unexpected.
Speaker 1: He began talking, for lack of a better word, and
Speaker 1: some sort of gibberish that was a mix of high
Speaker 1: and low tones. And then he grunted and raised his
Speaker 1: hand and flung it at me as if to say,
Speaker 1: leave me alone. I noticed he had a salmon in
Speaker 1: his other hand. His annoyance with me and his hand
Speaker 1: gestures were so human that I relaxed a little bit.
Speaker 1: He turned and started walking away, and from behind I
Speaker 1: could see that he was wide in the shoulders and
Speaker 1: he was lean in the waist. I guessed him to
Speaker 1: be eleven hundred pounds. I've seen big bears, and he
Speaker 1: dwarfed them. His strides were six feet each, and every
Speaker 1: step as he casually walked away from me, he turned
Speaker 1: and looked back over his shoulder. It reminded me so
Speaker 1: much of the Patterson Gimlin film. He looked just like Patty,
Speaker 1: but without the breasts. He looked back at me one
Speaker 1: last time, and he stopped and flung his hand at
Speaker 1: me in an annoyance again, and then he stepped into
Speaker 1: the bush. Clearly he was angry that I interrupted his meal,
Speaker 1: and he scolded me for it. But I was in
Speaker 1: awe throughout the whole experience. Five. I was a fifteen
Speaker 1: year old growing up in southwestern Virginia. I've spent most
Speaker 1: of my life in the woods. I still love to
Speaker 1: be in nature. It's where I believe I have a
Speaker 1: stronger relationship with my creator. I was sitting under some
Speaker 1: pines overlooking a deer trail on a cold morning. My
Speaker 1: uncle had a deer stand in an old tree in
Speaker 1: the same spot, and he'd killed a few deer from
Speaker 1: there because of that. In the cold front that had
Speaker 1: come through the night before. I had a feeling something
Speaker 1: was going to happen. As I sat there with my
Speaker 1: old side hammer muzzleloader loaded and ready for any deer
Speaker 1: to walk by, I heard the distinct sound of something
Speaker 1: crunching through the leaves. I put my rifle to my
Speaker 1: shoulder in anticipation of the deer I knew was about
Speaker 1: to pop up over the hill. What came over the
Speaker 1: hill wasn't a deer. There was a man who looked
Speaker 1: to be in his forties. I noticed he was wearing
Speaker 1: clothes that weren't from this era. He had on a
Speaker 1: flat brim leather hat with metal buttons on the front
Speaker 1: for decoration. His coat was made with the fur turned
Speaker 1: to the inside, and his pants were the same, with
Speaker 1: worn leather on the outside. His shoes were harsh soul moccasins,
Speaker 1: and he carried a leather possible's bag, the bag muzzleloader
Speaker 1: hunters carry with everything they need inside. It was across
Speaker 1: one shoulder with a powder horn on his opposite shoulder.
Speaker 1: His rifle was longer than the hawking style rifle I had.
Speaker 1: His hair was coarse and brown. His bright blue eyes
Speaker 1: sized me up from a face covered in a full
Speaker 1: graying beard. It was as if he had stepped through
Speaker 1: the mists from a distant past. He had a look
Speaker 1: of confusion on his face as he approached, but asked
Speaker 1: in a congenial voice if I had seen anything yet.
Speaker 1: Perplexed by the fact that someone was hunting the farm
Speaker 1: that I knew I had sold permission to hunt, I
Speaker 1: managed only a kurt no. He took another minute to
Speaker 1: look me up and down, and I did the same
Speaker 1: to him. Can I see your gun, he asked. I
Speaker 1: handed it over, and he passed his to me. He
Speaker 1: sat down and we each inspected each other's weapon with
Speaker 1: all Although his gun was longer than mine, it was lighter.
Speaker 1: More impressive to me than the gun was the man's appearance.
Speaker 1: I was amazed that someone was hunting in full mountain
Speaker 1: man apparel. Nothing he wore could have been as warm
Speaker 1: as my modern day insulated clothing. It was a sight
Speaker 1: I never would have expected to see here in the
Speaker 1: Blue Ridge Mountains. But I thought he must be a
Speaker 1: man who wished to live in a different time, and
Speaker 1: this was his coming as close to that as possible. Still,
Speaker 1: I couldn't help but wonder at his reaction to me.
Speaker 1: Maybe he really was from a different time. He handed
Speaker 1: back our guns and he smiled at me as he
Speaker 1: stood up. I might have asked him a few questions,
Speaker 1: but at that moment we both heard the sound of
Speaker 1: a deer walking. He's coming, the man said, without another word.
Speaker 1: The man got behind me and we both watched as
Speaker 1: a buck came over the hill. The man put his
Speaker 1: hand on my shoulder and he told me to take
Speaker 1: a deep breath and squeeze the trigger. I did as
Speaker 1: I was told. Pop. It wasn't the boom of the rifle,
Speaker 1: just the pop of the percrussion cap and the powder igniting.
Speaker 1: It was enough to send the buck running. The man's
Speaker 1: hand was still on my shoulder. As I turned around
Speaker 1: to say something, the words died on my lips. Though
Speaker 1: as I looked around for him, he wasn't there. I
Speaker 1: could still feel his hand on my shoulder, but he
Speaker 1: just wasn't there. I jumped up, and as I did so,
Speaker 1: the weight of his hand fell away. I decided it
Speaker 1: was time for me to call it a day. I
Speaker 1: was confused and frightened, but I didn't feel he meant
Speaker 1: me any harm, so there was no need to run.
Speaker 1: I just walked home. Reliving those moments in my head,
Speaker 1: wondering who he could have been or where he might
Speaker 1: have come from. When I got home, I put another
Speaker 1: percussion cap in the gun and fired. This time the
Speaker 1: rifle operated properly. I cleaned my gun and put it away.
Speaker 1: I never got the man's name, nor did I ever
Speaker 1: figure out where or when he may have come from,
Speaker 1: and I've never seen him again. I'm thirty now, and
Speaker 1: I haven't hunted that area since. Sometimes I think about
Speaker 1: going back, just to see if he might be there.
Speaker 1: There's some old old rock walls in that area, said
Speaker 1: to be from the eighteen hundreds, though no one knows
Speaker 1: what they were for or who built them. I like
Speaker 1: to think they were his. Once. My father was a
Speaker 1: master sergeant in the Green Beret Special Forces. My parents
Speaker 1: were friends with their captain and we would spend time
Speaker 1: with their family. Their house was located in a community
Speaker 1: in northwest Dade County called Palm Springs North. This area
Speaker 1: was the last development northwest of Dade County. To the
Speaker 1: west of there, there is nothing but woods and everglades.
Speaker 1: While our parents played cards until late their son Doug
Speaker 1: and I would ride our bikes all over the area.
Speaker 1: Sometimes not getting home until after midnight. On July the second,
Speaker 1: nineteen sixty six, Doug and I went to the neighborhood
Speaker 1: convenience store for snack. It was much too late for
Speaker 1: two twelve year old boys to be out, but times
Speaker 1: were different then. We then rode back to a vacant
Speaker 1: lot on the lake close to Doug's house to grub
Speaker 1: out on the junk food. On the way there, I
Speaker 1: had spotted a huge white owl in a tree with
Speaker 1: large black, oval shaped eyes. It was so strange and
Speaker 1: I had never seen anything like this. I could not
Speaker 1: take my eyes off it. Doug was way ahead of me,
Speaker 1: and he turned back to asking if I was coming.
Speaker 1: I broke eye contact with the owl and I yelled
Speaker 1: to Doug, Yeah, Yeah, I'm coming. And when I look
Speaker 1: back for the owl, it was gone. We arrived at
Speaker 1: the vacant lot on the lake. It was a beautiful night.
Speaker 1: Stars carpeted the black sky. Not long after dropping our bikes,
Speaker 1: we saw a cylinder shaped object glowing faintly across the lake.
Speaker 1: It appeared cylinder shaped from our point of view, and
Speaker 1: at the time, neither of us had ever heard of
Speaker 1: or knew anything about UFOs. We had only seen them
Speaker 1: in old, cheesy Martian movies. The object hovered over the
Speaker 1: trees with what appeared to be an electrical charge to it,
Speaker 1: and then it landed across the lake behind some trees
Speaker 1: and the glowing stopped. It never made a sound. We
Speaker 1: had to see what this was. It was about one am,
Speaker 1: and two twelve year old boys made the long ride
Speaker 1: around the lake to the area we thought the object landed.
Speaker 1: We lined up his parents' house across the lake, and
Speaker 1: we knew we were in the right spot. We only
Speaker 1: needed to find a way to that forest. Well. I
Speaker 1: knew this area. An old man in the neighborhood paid
Speaker 1: me to cut his grass, and I was here every
Speaker 1: week or so. Now I was thinking maybe this thing
Speaker 1: landed close to him his house. The dirt road leading
Speaker 1: to his house came into view on my right and
Speaker 1: we took it. The wooded area was dark and I
Speaker 1: had trouble seeing the road. I actually didn't want to
Speaker 1: go further, but we peddled on and then I could
Speaker 1: see the road clearly, like the sun had come up.
Speaker 1: I was confused at the light. It didn't make sense
Speaker 1: and it should not have been there, but I was
Speaker 1: thankful to be able to finally see where I was peddling.
Speaker 1: Something was off about this, though. My last memory of
Speaker 1: the ride down the dusty road was a tingling sensation
Speaker 1: all over my body. I became dizzy and I dropped
Speaker 1: the bike in the middle of the road, so did Doug.
Speaker 1: I remember standing straight up and looking ahead, and that's it.
Speaker 1: Doug was shaking me and telling me to wake up.
Speaker 1: I was laying on the ground. Sand was all over me,
Speaker 1: like I had been rolling in It helped me up
Speaker 1: and I saw it was almost daylight and we were
Speaker 1: standing in the tall weeds of the vacant lot by
Speaker 1: the lake, our bikes laying beside us, both of us
Speaker 1: still groggy, dusted the sand off our clothes, and we
Speaker 1: walked our bikes back to Doug's house, neither of us
Speaker 1: could ride. Before we got there, we saw a police
Speaker 1: car in the drive. Our parents noticed us walking in
Speaker 1: the street and they came running. At first, they were
Speaker 1: happy to see us. Our mother smothered us with hugs,
Speaker 1: but they soon got hacked off at us. The usual
Speaker 1: questions followed, and we couldn't answer any of them, making
Speaker 1: our parents think that we were covering something up. Of
Speaker 1: course we weren't, but how would we explain what had
Speaker 1: really happened. It was early Saturday morning, and when we
Speaker 1: got home, I went straight to bed and I slept
Speaker 1: until Sunday morning. I never woke once, no dreams, no
Speaker 1: trips to the bathroom, solid sleep for over twenty four hours.
Speaker 1: That weekend, I was supposed to cut that old man's yard,
Speaker 1: so I got up and I gassed up the mower.
Speaker 1: I was about to get on my bike and drag
Speaker 1: the mower over there, but I felt hungry. I went
Speaker 1: back inside and I found a note on the kitchen
Speaker 1: table in my mother's handwriting. It said that mister Shagg
Speaker 1: had called and to forget about cutting his grass. I
Speaker 1: was disappointed because I wanted to make some money that day.
Speaker 1: I rode over to mister Shagg's place down the same
Speaker 1: dirt road where this incident happened, to see if he
Speaker 1: had fired me or maybe found someone to cut the
Speaker 1: yard cheaper. He was standing in the yard when I
Speaker 1: rode up. His lawn was black. Something had caught it
Speaker 1: on fire and burned that beautiful long down to nothing.
Speaker 1: We walked around the back and his healthy garden looked
Speaker 1: the same. Who burns your yard up, mister Shagg. I asked,
Speaker 1: nothing burned it up? He said, I woke up yesterday.
Speaker 1: I came out and this is what I found. There
Speaker 1: was no fire. Reach down and grab a water of
Speaker 1: that black grass and smell it. I did, and I
Speaker 1: expected to catch a strong, charred odor, but it had
Speaker 1: no odor at all. Something had just sucked the life
Speaker 1: out of everything green on that property. His yard started
Speaker 1: growing back that summer, but it was almost two months
Speaker 1: before he needed it cut again, and by the time
Speaker 1: I next cut his yard, I had forgotten about the
Speaker 1: entire incident. Mister Shagg talked about black grass and how
Speaker 1: long it had taken to grow back, and I had
Speaker 1: no clue what he was talking about. That bugged me
Speaker 1: for years after. I actually thought that he had become
Speaker 1: senile and was dreaming things up. Eight or nine years ago,
Speaker 1: I was surfing through YouTube videos. I was always drawn
Speaker 1: to the UFO and alien videos. In one video, a
Speaker 1: man stated that many abductees report seeing a large white
Speaker 1: owl within hours before their abduction, and that clicked with me.
Speaker 1: The memories didn't come flooding back, but I remembered the
Speaker 1: owl that night, piece by piece that night's events came
Speaker 1: back to me over the next year. Some of those
Speaker 1: pieces fell into place in dreams. I finally remembered as
Speaker 1: much as I have written in this email. But that
Speaker 1: is all I can remember. I have been stuck here
Speaker 1: ever since. There are four or five hours missing and
Speaker 1: I cannot find them. I'm on a dirt road surrounded
Speaker 1: by light. Five hours later, I wake up with my
Speaker 1: buddy in an overgrown field of weeds and sand. It
Speaker 1: doesn't make sense. Doug and I stayed friends for years.
Speaker 1: It was not long after this incident that my family
Speaker 1: moved closer to Doug's house. Life went on, and we
Speaker 1: never spoke about it. It wasn't in either of our
Speaker 1: memories at the time. After he and I graduated and
Speaker 1: went off to school, I lost track of him, and
Speaker 1: I haven't spoken to him since. Throughout my adult life,
Speaker 1: I have suffered from anxiety neither. Can I be closed
Speaker 1: in a room with no obvious exits That sends me
Speaker 1: off the deep end. This all started in my thirties.
Speaker 1: I was raised in a happy, two parent home. My
Speaker 1: childhood and adolescent years were normal and a lot of fun.
Speaker 1: I always had a great attitude, and I don't remember
Speaker 1: being sad a day in my life. I spoke with
Speaker 1: a therapist for a season, and he believes it is
Speaker 1: the result of a traumatic experience or PTSD. At that time,
Speaker 1: I had no memory of that night in nineteen sixty six.
Speaker 1: I have recently tried to look Doug up, but I
Speaker 1: have no way to know where life took that kid.
Speaker 1: I'll keep looking. Maybe he has more answers than I do.
Speaker 1: When I was a kid, I lived a mile from
Speaker 1: my school. Sometimes, when I was in a hurry, I
Speaker 1: walked the highway to get home faster. I like to
Speaker 1: explore the woods back then. One day, on one of
Speaker 1: my explorations, I wandered down a couple of different logging
Speaker 1: roads that cut through the woods, and I discovered that
Speaker 1: they took me to the school as well. They were
Speaker 1: less travel than the highway, but still easily walked, and
Speaker 1: it took a little longer to go that way, but
Speaker 1: it gave me time for myself. One late fall day,
Speaker 1: when I didn't have to be home right away to
Speaker 1: babysit my brother, I decided to go that route instead.
Speaker 1: It was kind of beautiful fall day when I could
Speaker 1: let my mind wander and enjoy the peace and quiet
Speaker 1: of the woods. I hadn't gone far and I noticed
Speaker 1: something big and black was following me one hundred yards away.
Speaker 1: I thought it was a bear, and my heart began
Speaker 1: to race, and then I realized it had stopped walking
Speaker 1: and it slinked behind a tree. I could tell it
Speaker 1: was black as night, and it was really big. It
Speaker 1: was muscular with short hair, like a gorilla. He couldn't
Speaker 1: hide from me, though he obviously didn't like it. I
Speaker 1: had had one encounter with a bigfoot before, it was
Speaker 1: a friendly one. I was pretty sure this one wasn't
Speaker 1: going to be friendly, though. He walked toward me a
Speaker 1: few steps and then stopped, as if he were pondering
Speaker 1: what to do. My adrenaline levels were already through the roof,
Speaker 1: so I bolted. He proceeded to follow me, and I
Speaker 1: was running with all my might, but he seemed to
Speaker 1: be running with ease, as if he was just pacing me.
Speaker 1: Fear was pushing me onward as fast as I could go,
Speaker 1: and I threw my books aside and I ran until
Speaker 1: my lungs felt like they were going to burst. I
Speaker 1: wasn't looking anymore to see if it was behind me.
Speaker 1: I just wanted to go home. Finally, when my heart
Speaker 1: felt like it was thundering in my throat, I stopped
Speaker 1: and looked around, and the creature was gone. I looked
Speaker 1: all around me several times and I didn't see him anywhere.
Speaker 1: But I didn't trust it, so I took off runting again,
Speaker 1: and I didn't stop until I got home. I struggled
Speaker 1: to get the key in the door, but somehow I managed,
Speaker 1: and once I was inside, I slammed the door shut
Speaker 1: and I locked it. I knew from my last experience
Speaker 1: that this wouldn't keep him out. My last encounter taught
Speaker 1: me that I spent the rest of the day freaked
Speaker 1: out and scared. I never went back through those woods again.
Speaker 1: I got into a lot of trouble at school for
Speaker 1: losing my books, but I didn't care. I wasn't going
Speaker 1: back in there. For him, that was his territory and
Speaker 1: he could keep it. M