Speaker 1: I thought I would tell you about my bigfoot encounter
Speaker 1: that happened in the winter of nineteen seventy six when
Speaker 1: I was seventeen years old. The thing that is so
Speaker 1: unusual is where it happened. I grew up in a
Speaker 1: small farming community in southwest Kansas. The land in this
Speaker 1: area is flat and almost has no trees. It is
Speaker 1: a place that you can see for miles in every direction.
Speaker 1: The only landscape that was different in the area was
Speaker 1: near the Cimarron River. Down by the river, there were
Speaker 1: a lot of cottonwood trees and a lot of shrubs
Speaker 1: and thick undergrowth. One day, I decided to call my
Speaker 1: cousin and see if he wanted to go out hunting
Speaker 1: or shoot some targets for fun. It was on a
Speaker 1: Sunday afternoon that we went out. We didn't have much
Speaker 1: luck hunting rabbits, so we decided to go tar get
Speaker 1: shooting instead. At the time, we were close to the river,
Speaker 1: and I remembered seeing an old abandoned junkyard on the
Speaker 1: banks of the river, close to the bridge that went
Speaker 1: over the river. I couldn't park very close to the
Speaker 1: junkyard because I was so close to the end of
Speaker 1: the bridge, and it wasn't safe to park there, so
Speaker 1: we decided to park on the other side of the
Speaker 1: river and walk across to the junkyard. Now I have
Speaker 1: to explain that the river most of the time was dry.
Speaker 1: The only time it would run is if there was
Speaker 1: a big flood further upstream from us. Once we got
Speaker 1: to the other side, I parked my dad's pickup truck
Speaker 1: and we got ready to go shoot some bottles and cans.
Speaker 1: And there was an old washing machine that had to
Speaker 1: have been thrown away and we wanted to shoot it
Speaker 1: it too. I got out of the pickup truck and
Speaker 1: started to load my twenty two pump rifle. All of
Speaker 1: a sudden I heard something I had never heard before.
Speaker 1: I heard something walking on two feet like a man,
Speaker 1: but it was a lot bigger and heavier. The thing
Speaker 1: that amazed me about this sound it was coming from
Speaker 1: downstream from us and on the other side of the river.
Speaker 1: It must have been close to a half mile away,
Speaker 1: but I could hear it walking from that far. Every
Speaker 1: time it took a step, it sounded like it was
Speaker 1: crushing things under its weight. Whatever it was, it was
Speaker 1: really big and powerful, and when I heard it. I
Speaker 1: looked over to the other side of the pickup and
Speaker 1: I asked my cousin, did you hear that. He said,
Speaker 1: he heard something, but it was probably somebody's bull that
Speaker 1: got loose, and it was looking for some cows in
Speaker 1: the woods. Well, I thought to myself, well, maybe he's right.
Speaker 1: So I shrugged it off and I kept loading my rifle.
Speaker 1: By the time I got finished loading, the walking sound
Speaker 1: had stopped. I didn't hear any more sound, so my
Speaker 1: cousin and I started walking across the dry river bed.
Speaker 1: When we got about halfway across the river, my cousin
Speaker 1: saw a few beer cans someone had thrown out of
Speaker 1: their car, and at this time we were almost directly
Speaker 1: under the bridge. My cousin said, Hey, there's some cans
Speaker 1: over there. Let's stop and shoot them for a minute,
Speaker 1: and so we did. Then my cousin was shooting at
Speaker 1: the cans, and all of a sudden he stopped and
Speaker 1: looked at the other side of the river. Well, I
Speaker 1: was watching the cans as he shot, so I didn't
Speaker 1: see what he saw. I asked him what he saw,
Speaker 1: and he told me that he saw something really big
Speaker 1: and dark colored looking at us from behind. Some tall bushes. Well,
Speaker 1: this kind of scared me, and I said maybe we
Speaker 1: should go back to the pickup truck and go home.
Speaker 1: But my cousin was determined to get to that junkyard
Speaker 1: so that we could start to walk toward the other
Speaker 1: side of the river. The brush on the other side
Speaker 1: of the river was very thick and tall, and you
Speaker 1: couldn't see more than twenty feet ahead of you. We
Speaker 1: were getting close to the river bank when all of
Speaker 1: a sudden, a giant branch out of a tree came
Speaker 1: crashing down. Well, this scared my cousin and I half
Speaker 1: to death. The branch was so big the only thing
Speaker 1: that could have torn it down was a piece of
Speaker 1: heavy equipment like a tractor with a big chain. It
Speaker 1: was really unbelievable. My cousin and I slowly backed away.
Speaker 1: He wanted to shoot in there blindly, but I stopped him,
Speaker 1: and I said that our twenty two rifle would just
Speaker 1: make it mad if we shot at it, and it
Speaker 1: might come out and kill us. So we backed off
Speaker 1: as quickly as we could, and when we had backed
Speaker 1: up about fifty yards, the bigfoot or whatever it was,
Speaker 1: started running away from us through the thick trees and
Speaker 1: a heavy brush. Well, I was happy it ran away
Speaker 1: from us, but I was amazed by the speed and power,
Speaker 1: because it sounded like a bulldozer going through the brush.
Speaker 1: It was knocking branches out of the trees and crushing
Speaker 1: anything in its way. Not only was it powerful, but
Speaker 1: it was unbelievably fast. It was running through the brush
Speaker 1: as fast as a race horse. And when my cousin
Speaker 1: and I heard that, we turned and ran back across
Speaker 1: the river, got in my dad's pickup, and we tore
Speaker 1: out of there. Cam This scared me so bad that
Speaker 1: I stayed away from that river for twenty years, and
Speaker 1: to this day, I will only drive by it, but
Speaker 1: I never get out. Thank you for letting me write
Speaker 1: my encounter. I'm sorry I'm not a better writer. I
Speaker 1: hope you can make sense out of what I wrote.
Speaker 1: Thank you for being a good Christian and a fellow
Speaker 1: brother in Christ. You can use my name. It's Nolan.
Speaker 1: And then he got thank you, Nolan. And then he
Speaker 1: followed up with another email and he wrote this, I
Speaker 1: wrote a little bit earlier, and if I got to
Speaker 1: mention a few things about my encounter. Number one, I
Speaker 1: did not smell anything that smelled bad. Maybe the wind
Speaker 1: was in the wrong direction to catch the scent. I
Speaker 1: think catching the scent would have let us know that
Speaker 1: something was wrong. Number two, I don't remember hearing anything
Speaker 1: before the branch was wrapped out of the tree. I
Speaker 1: think when Bigfoot wants to, he can be very quiet
Speaker 1: when he's sneaking up on someone or on a deer
Speaker 1: or rabbits or whatever. That's what makes him real scary
Speaker 1: to me, also a great hunter. Well that's about all
Speaker 1: I had to add to my story. Thanks Nolan, Well, Nolan,
Speaker 1: thanks for the story. This was back in let's see,
Speaker 1: nineteen seventy six. That's a long time ago. That's when
Speaker 1: kids would really ride around in trucks. They'd be thirteen
Speaker 1: or fourteen years old, ride around in trucks and shooting
Speaker 1: cans and snakes and turtles with twenty twos. Of course,
Speaker 1: I don't recommend shooting wildlife with twenty twos, but that's
Speaker 1: what kids did. They just rode around and shot rifles
Speaker 1: off of bridges and stuff. Heck, I like doing that
Speaker 1: as an adult. So the story was a little nostalgic
Speaker 1: to me, but it's a great encounter story. Olan. Thank
Speaker 1: you for sending it. I know we all enjoyed it.
Speaker 1: And it happened in southwest Kansas, of all places. Can
Speaker 1: you believe that? Thank you, Nolan. Here's a pretty good
Speaker 1: story from South Mississippi. I think you guys will appreciate
Speaker 1: this one. My story begins when I was eight years old.
Speaker 1: I'm forty now, and I grew up in deep southern Mississippi.
Speaker 1: And that's all I'm really willing to say about the location.
Speaker 1: My mom, dad, and two sisters and I lived on
Speaker 1: my grandparents' property where my grandfather had cattle. We lived
Speaker 1: towards the front of the property, and my grandparents lived
Speaker 1: a way in the back. The road dead ended at
Speaker 1: their brick house, where my grandmother had at least one
Speaker 1: hundred azalea bushes out front. I don't recall the exact year,
Speaker 1: but I do recall it with spring because the azaleas
Speaker 1: were in full bloom. It was a beautiful sight to
Speaker 1: come around the bend in the road to see my
Speaker 1: grandmother's azaleas and all their My grandparents had several businesses,
Speaker 1: so they were always gone. Living in the country and
Speaker 1: thirty miles from the nearest store, my mother would often
Speaker 1: find it easier to send me down to their house
Speaker 1: to raid the cupboards for a missing items she might
Speaker 1: need than to drive into town. It was a walk
Speaker 1: I made a thousand times, and one I loved, especially
Speaker 1: in the spring. Sadly, that day my opinion would change forever.
Speaker 1: I don't remember the item my mother had sent me
Speaker 1: to retrieve, but I was eager to get out of
Speaker 1: the house. I couldn't wait to see all those azalea bushes,
Speaker 1: so I took off down the road, completely unaware of
Speaker 1: what was in store. When I got to the first straightaway,
Speaker 1: I caught movement to my right, just inside the woods.
Speaker 1: I was no stranger to those woods. I knew them
Speaker 1: like the back of my hand. I got to know
Speaker 1: the woods through one hundred imaginary deer hunts and squirrel
Speaker 1: hunts with my Daisy pellet rifle. So even though the
Speaker 1: movement stopped me dead in my tracks, I wasn't afraid.
Speaker 1: I thought it was one of my grandfather's cows that
Speaker 1: had gone out of its pasture. It had its back
Speaker 1: to me, so all I really saw was something big
Speaker 1: and red, reddish brown in color. Just as I began
Speaker 1: to resign myself to the thought of having to wrangle
Speaker 1: the wayward cow. It stood up on two legs. It
Speaker 1: stepped over a five strand barbed wire fence like it
Speaker 1: was nothing. My mind was screaming that it was a bear.
Speaker 1: Even the thought of being a bear was enough to
Speaker 1: scare me to death. And I just stood there in
Speaker 1: shock or amazement or fear. I can't say now. I
Speaker 1: just know I stood there for what felt like minutes,
Speaker 1: but I'm certain was only seconds. At some point I
Speaker 1: snapped out of it and turned to run as fast
Speaker 1: as I could back to my house. There was no
Speaker 1: way I was coming back through these woods with that
Speaker 1: big thing out there. Even as I turned to run,
Speaker 1: my curiosity got the best of me, and I couldn't
Speaker 1: resist looking back. The monstrous thing was staring at me,
Speaker 1: and it was huge. It was a huge figure with
Speaker 1: its hands resting on the top strand of the barbed wire.
Speaker 1: I didn't want to see its face, so I made
Speaker 1: tracks for home. I got back to the house, where
Speaker 1: I'm sure Mom was expecting me to have whatever items
Speaker 1: she needed from Grandma's kitchen. I didn't give her time
Speaker 1: to ask. Out of breath and hands on my knees
Speaker 1: and gasping for air, all I could say was, there's
Speaker 1: a bear down there. Mom. Mom said that I must
Speaker 1: have been imagining things. She insisted that I get back
Speaker 1: down there and get what she needed. We do not
Speaker 1: have bears in these woods, she said. I couldn't bring
Speaker 1: myself to tell her or anyone else that what I
Speaker 1: saw really wasn't a bear, and I didn't want to
Speaker 1: be laughed at. Now I was pretty darn sure my
Speaker 1: mom was right. There weren't any bears in those woods.
Speaker 1: I refused to walk back to Grandma's house, so Mom
Speaker 1: finally agreed to drive me. I showed her where I
Speaker 1: saw it, but of course it was gone. I never
Speaker 1: told anyone except my mom because I was certain i'd
Speaker 1: be laughed at. As time went on, though, I think
Speaker 1: Mom began to believe that I saw something that day.
Speaker 1: Before that day, I was never one to stay inside.
Speaker 1: Suddenly I was perfectly fine with being indoors, and she
Speaker 1: would ask me to describe it to her. So I did.
Speaker 1: And back then I didn't know anything about bigfoot. The
Speaker 1: old timers would talk about buggers, but I never really
Speaker 1: put all that together until recently. Years passed and I
Speaker 1: got into my thirties, and by then I had decided
Speaker 1: that one incident wasn't going to keep me out of
Speaker 1: the woods. I had gained permission to hunt a prime
Speaker 1: track of woods that were perfect for getting a good buck.
Speaker 1: I took my younger brother and stepbrother along with me,
Speaker 1: and I sent them to a good box stand where
Speaker 1: they could hunt together while I took off with my
Speaker 1: climber for the deep woods. There was a spot where
Speaker 1: I knew the big ones would be. I was walking
Speaker 1: to this perfect spot and the deeper end of the woods,
Speaker 1: I got the more of a creepy feeling I got
Speaker 1: about the place. It was like I was being watched.
Speaker 1: I started hearing noises in the bush when I walked,
Speaker 1: but it stopped when I stopped. Now, I told myself
Speaker 1: it was just me being rattled by being so deep
Speaker 1: in the woods, until I started climbing up the perfect
Speaker 1: pine tree and my old man climber and started getting
Speaker 1: rocks thrown at me. I yelled out that whoever was
Speaker 1: throwing the rocks was on private property, but dead silence
Speaker 1: was my only answer at first, and then the god
Speaker 1: awfless scream I've ever heard in my life came belting
Speaker 1: out of the woods. It felt like it vibrated the
Speaker 1: true and it shook me to my core. I'm really
Speaker 1: not gonna lie about it. I climbed down out of
Speaker 1: that tree and got back to my truck as fast
Speaker 1: as I could, leaving my old man climber right where
Speaker 1: I'm sure it still hangs today. I threw open the
Speaker 1: truck door, jumped inside, and cranked her up, and I
Speaker 1: was about to tear out of there when I remembered
Speaker 1: my brother and step brother. Oh well, I thought it'll
Speaker 1: be dark soon enough and they'll come out. And it
Speaker 1: wasn't long before I heard footsteps coming up to the
Speaker 1: side of the truck. I was looking at my phone
Speaker 1: and I assumed it was my two brothers, and I
Speaker 1: never bothered looking up. One of them jumped into the
Speaker 1: back of the truck, and I thought, yep, that's got
Speaker 1: to be my step brother. He's six foot four tall
Speaker 1: and easily weighs three hundred pounds. I couldn't imagine anything
Speaker 1: else that could rock the truck like that. After a bit,
Speaker 1: when there was no noise, no truck shaking, and only
Speaker 1: pure silence, I opened the door to see what was
Speaker 1: going on, and that's when I salt their flashlight coming
Speaker 1: up the road. What did you guys forget? I called, Well,
Speaker 1: they looked at me with a puzzled expression and said, huh.
Speaker 1: I told them that they'd come to the truck and
Speaker 1: put something in the back, and now they were walking
Speaker 1: up the road, so I figured they must have forgotten
Speaker 1: something and gone back to get it. They said no,
Speaker 1: that they were just now coming out of the woods.
Speaker 1: For the first time, I could tell that they were
Speaker 1: telling the truth, and I kept hoping they'd burst out
Speaker 1: laughing at any moment, but they never did. They got
Speaker 1: in the truck and we left. I have not been
Speaker 1: back to those woods, and I've spent a lot of
Speaker 1: time mulling over these events. What did I see in
Speaker 1: the woods that day on my way to my grandmother's
Speaker 1: And what in this world could have screened at me
Speaker 1: in the woods or made my truck rock like that.
Speaker 1: I'm content to believe that whatever it was did not
Speaker 1: want me there for whatever reason, and I'm happy to oblige.
Speaker 1: Oh dude, that's a good story. South missus Sippy gets
Speaker 1: a lot of these stories. Really, the whole state does,
Speaker 1: and I don't Mississippi Alabama. Here's the point. These things
Speaker 1: apparently are everywhere. There's some form of these creatures all
Speaker 1: over the United States. The only place I haven't heard
Speaker 1: of encounters like this, and I'm just thinking off the
Speaker 1: top of my head is the Great Plains States, you know,
Speaker 1: the middle of the United States where the Great Grass
Speaker 1: Plains are, think a little big horn that type of area,
Speaker 1: because there's no cover, there's no place for them to go,
Speaker 1: and those you know, those are just just grasslands, is
Speaker 1: what they are. So I don't recall having a story
Speaker 1: from there, but in any place that's wooded, especially in
Speaker 1: the southeast or the East, or the Pacific Northwest, not
Speaker 1: necessarily the desert, although Arizona has a few with the
Speaker 1: mogion thing. Anyway, I'm just I'm just talking out loud.
Speaker 1: I don't know what I'm talking about, but all these
Speaker 1: thoughts come to my head and just I don't know,
Speaker 1: they've just come out of my mouth. But I'm just
Speaker 1: thinking about when was the last time that I got
Speaker 1: a story from those Great Plains or like the deserts
Speaker 1: of southern California, for example. But anyway, this is a
Speaker 1: great story, and I really appreciate the man riding in.
Speaker 1: I've had it for a long time and i've been
Speaker 1: anxious to get it out, so there you go.