Speaker 1: Okay. Sometimes we get little short, one paragraph stories, and
Speaker 1: I try to include all the stories I get in
Speaker 1: this podcast. So this is really short, but it has
Speaker 1: a lot of impact. Here's the story. I'm a hiker
Speaker 1: and a birdwatcher, and I'm a friend to animals. In fact,
Speaker 1: I usually like them more than people. I was hiking
Speaker 1: once in Washington State, near Darrington when I stopped to
Speaker 1: retime my boot drink some water. Off to my right,
Speaker 1: I heard something stomping through the brush. I turned to
Speaker 1: look at it, and I saw plainly that it was
Speaker 1: a bigfoot. It was unmistakable, over seven feet tall, with
Speaker 1: light brown, shaggy hair, and it smelled like a wet dog.
Speaker 1: I didn't know what else to do but put my
Speaker 1: hand up and wave at it, and to my surprise,
Speaker 1: it waved right back and then just kept on going
Speaker 1: where it had to be. I didn't feel scared for
Speaker 1: a second. It was a brief encounter, but it was
Speaker 1: a friendly one. The writer titles this story the P. D. Booger.
Speaker 1: This is a true story that took place in a
Speaker 1: remote area of south central North Carolina along the Great
Speaker 1: Pade River Valley country. My father lived in a little
Speaker 1: house along one of the few lonely backroads that went
Speaker 1: into this rural section of our county. Although I didn't
Speaker 1: live with him, I spent a lot of time with
Speaker 1: him when he didn't have to work. I lived in town,
Speaker 1: fifteen miles away to the south with my grandparents at
Speaker 1: the time. I was a young boy around the age
Speaker 1: of twelve when I first started visiting with Dad. In
Speaker 1: the country. Between Dad's house in about three or four others.
Speaker 1: Clustered around him were an expanse of four forest hills, creeks,
Speaker 1: and valleys that ran along with the river. It's a
Speaker 1: beautiful area with its thickly covered rolling hills with plenty
Speaker 1: of wildlife. I made friends with two other boys about
Speaker 1: my age, and the three of us became inseparable. They
Speaker 1: were brothers, one named Steve and the other was Heath.
Speaker 1: Although they fought like cats and dogs with each other,
Speaker 1: they were always good friends to me. Now bear in
Speaker 1: mind that this was around nineteen eighty and in those
Speaker 1: days we didn't even have cell phones and even video
Speaker 1: games at home. Arcades had just started showing up, and
Speaker 1: the nearest one was miles away. So we did what
Speaker 1: young country boys do. We kept ourselves entertained by chomping
Speaker 1: the hills and the forests. We did a lot of
Speaker 1: fishing in the creeks and ponds. We'd catch a lot
Speaker 1: of crappie and bass and take them home for Dad
Speaker 1: to cook up for a big fish fry. Tree stands
Speaker 1: and forts back in the woods, we'd camp out too.
Speaker 1: We never lacked for something to do, and now, as
Speaker 1: a much older man, I treasure those memories. To the
Speaker 1: northwest of Dad's house, the woods were thicker and took
Speaker 1: on an almost spooky feel at times. The area was
Speaker 1: known to have been the home of the Creek Indians
Speaker 1: many years ago, and there were the remnants of some
Speaker 1: of their burial mounds and settlements said to be scattered
Speaker 1: along the river valley. There was one patch of woods
Speaker 1: that we never camped in, and an elderly older man
Speaker 1: always warned us to be careful if we ventured in there.
Speaker 1: He claimed that the woods were haunted and that folks
Speaker 1: had been seeing a wild man over the years in there.
Speaker 1: He called it the pd Booger. To us boys, that
Speaker 1: was like an imitation. Because we were always looking for
Speaker 1: something to do and weren't afraid of much. We had
Speaker 1: walked in trails and deer paths before in the area
Speaker 1: and heard some strange sounds like hoots and grunts and
Speaker 1: what they now call tree knocks, but we never really
Speaker 1: thought much of it. And then one evening, my friend
Speaker 1: from school rode with me and we stayed the night.
Speaker 1: We decided to walk up a path that we had
Speaker 1: never been before. A mile in we began to have
Speaker 1: a feeling that we were being watched. You always got
Speaker 1: that feeling up there. We rounded a bend in the
Speaker 1: path and caught sight of something big running upright down
Speaker 1: the hill ahead of us. We took off running as
Speaker 1: fast as possible, and we could hear this thing running
Speaker 1: down the hill in our direction. We made it back
Speaker 1: to within sight of the road and we stopped to listen.
Speaker 1: This thing also stopped, and we could hear it running away.
Speaker 1: We told Steve and Heath about it, and the next
Speaker 1: day me and my friend had to return home, but
Speaker 1: Steve went up to the area to check it out.
Speaker 1: He found a series of footprints in an exposed clay
Speaker 1: patch that he later showed me. A few weeks later,
Speaker 1: my dad took Steve and myself fishing at that spot
Speaker 1: not too far away, but closer to the river. Dad
Speaker 1: told us not to venture too far from the boat
Speaker 1: landing where he had parked the truck. Steve knew of
Speaker 1: a specific spot up along the creek that he was
Speaker 1: told was good to fish, so we walked about an
Speaker 1: eighth of a mile up a footpath. We came up
Speaker 1: on the spot and noticed a foul smell in the air.
Speaker 1: Steve noticed footprints similar to what we had seen days earlier,
Speaker 1: only these were eighteen inches long and had three toes
Speaker 1: on each foot. It looked like whatever left the Prince
Speaker 1: came down the hill and went into the water, and
Speaker 1: then climbed back out and walked north along the same
Speaker 1: path that we were on. I went down to the
Speaker 1: creek's edge to get a closer look, and I fell in.
Speaker 1: Steve said, dang boy, your daddy's going to be mad
Speaker 1: at you. After he got through laughing, he grabbed a
Speaker 1: stick and he helped me pull myself up the bank.
Speaker 1: The clay was like walking on butter, and you could
Speaker 1: barely stand up on it. I brushed myself off, and
Speaker 1: I talked Steve into following those tracks to see if
Speaker 1: we could find it. So off we headed north along
Speaker 1: the creek, Wherever the creature stepped in the clay, it
Speaker 1: left a distinct track, and there were limbs and brush
Speaker 1: pulled back well above our heads, which indicated to us
Speaker 1: that this thing was greater than six feet tall. We
Speaker 1: walked another four hundred yards until Steve stopped and said, listen,
Speaker 1: do you hear anything? I said no, He said, that's
Speaker 1: my point. It's dead quiet. It's kind of eerie. The
Speaker 1: four sounds around us all went silent. As we stood there,
Speaker 1: we began to hear heavy breathing and crunch sounds of
Speaker 1: leaves that foul odor was back. Also, something let out
Speaker 1: a growl that rattled our bones. That it was so close,
Speaker 1: we did what anyone would do. We ran like hell.
Speaker 1: Steve was so scared that he dropped his new tackle
Speaker 1: box with a fifty dollars worth of tackle in it.
Speaker 1: He was scared to stop, and we just left it.
Speaker 1: By the time we made it back to the road,
Speaker 1: it was almost dark and we heard Dad calling our
Speaker 1: names from the other side of the bridge. He was
Speaker 1: upset and worried, but he was relieved to see us.
Speaker 1: After a good lecture from Dad, we told him what
Speaker 1: had happened. He didn't believe us we could tell that,
Speaker 1: but he asked Steve where his tackle box was. Steve
Speaker 1: told him that it was back up the trail. Dad,
Speaker 1: not really being scared of much and believing that there
Speaker 1: was a rational explanation for all of this, grabbed his
Speaker 1: flashlight from the glovebox and said, well, come, come on,
Speaker 1: let's go get it. Dad had given Steve some of
Speaker 1: the tackle and knew that Steve's folks would be upset
Speaker 1: if he lost it, so after a little bit of
Speaker 1: convincing us to go with him, we reluctantly followed Dad
Speaker 1: back up the trail. As we approached the fishing spot,
Speaker 1: we showed Dad the footprints. He agreed that they were odd,
Speaker 1: but that didn't amuse him, so we pushed on once again.
Speaker 1: The forest sounds ceased, and I could tell that Dad
Speaker 1: was getting an uneasy feeling. Then we all smelled that odor.
Speaker 1: We soon came upon the tackle box and hitting the ground,
Speaker 1: it had popped open, spilling much of the contents. Steve
Speaker 1: and I squatted down to pick up the stuff and
Speaker 1: put it back in the box while Dad held the
Speaker 1: flashlight on it. Then again, a low growl came from
Speaker 1: the trees off to our right, it was real close
Speaker 1: this time. For the first time in my life, I
Speaker 1: saw fear in my dad's He said, hurry up, boys,
Speaker 1: grab what you can and let's get out of here.
Speaker 1: So we scrambled to get all the lures and lead
Speaker 1: sinkers and corks and hooks, etc. Along with the leaves
Speaker 1: and dirt Scooped up as much as possible, and threw
Speaker 1: it in the box and grabbed it and walked very
Speaker 1: fast away. Dad told us not to run, because he
Speaker 1: couldn't keep up with us if we did, and he
Speaker 1: didn't want that thing to give chase, so he walked
Speaker 1: behind us, keeping ourn eye out for the creature. By
Speaker 1: the time we reached the truck, we heard the creature
Speaker 1: screaming at us from the other side of the creek. Well,
Speaker 1: my father's almost eighty now, and he told me that
Speaker 1: he went back there without us one day many years
Speaker 1: ago and had his own experience with this same creature.
Speaker 1: Although he didn't see it, it watched him from the
Speaker 1: hill above and tossed rocks into the water near him. Now,
Speaker 1: a grown man in my fifties, I went back there
Speaker 1: myself one night, and I parked the car and I
Speaker 1: sat out on the boat ramp and I just listened.
Speaker 1: I was the only one out there that cool fall night.
Speaker 1: I thought I heard a faint howl way up in
Speaker 1: the creek, so I got up, found a large stick,
Speaker 1: and started hitting the side of a fence post. It
Speaker 1: wasn't long before I got three distinct knocks from reply
Speaker 1: way off in the distance. Sat there for another hour
Speaker 1: and I heard nothing. And in the following years I've
Speaker 1: heard tales from hunters and fishermen talking about hearing this
Speaker 1: creature and its lonely cry in the night. One fellow
Speaker 1: that I heard even said he saw it on the
Speaker 1: river bank a few miles away while he drifted on
Speaker 1: the water at night fishing. Stephen Heath moved on. I
Speaker 1: don't know where they are today. Dad's old home places gone.
Speaker 1: It burned down years ago after he moved back into town.
Speaker 1: Just a patch of holly bushes where the old house
Speaker 1: used to sit. Or Do I miss those days? We
Speaker 1: heard and saw a lot of strange things in those hills.
Speaker 1: And I could go on and on about my experiences.
Speaker 1: If you ever find yourself along the back roads of
Speaker 1: pe d River Hill country, along about dark, keeping eye
Speaker 1: out for deer and bobcats and turkey and other wild animals,
Speaker 1: and who knows, you might just catch sight of the
Speaker 1: PD booger. I've been hunting on my own since I
Speaker 1: was twelve years old. Today I'm forty three, and after
Speaker 1: years of working as a large animal vettec there are
Speaker 1: mornings when I feel like a hard and abused ninety
Speaker 1: year old. For the last five years, I've hunted the
Speaker 1: same spot on our land in Breckinridge, Texas. It's a
Speaker 1: good place to escape the world and work. Their two
Speaker 1: main trails, and at their intersection stands a large oak tree,
Speaker 1: and that's where I I've had game that I passed
Speaker 1: on stand within feet of me and never know I
Speaker 1: was there, And boy was that fun watching a young
Speaker 1: doe and her fawn jumping and spinning like a bucking
Speaker 1: bull on the frosty ground. Or the ridiculously fat squirrel
Speaker 1: who came by and got within inches and stared at
Speaker 1: me for several minutes before barking once and waddling off.
Speaker 1: I like to get to my spot well before legal light.
Speaker 1: My walk to the tree is only about three hundred yards,
Speaker 1: but it takes me quite a while to get there
Speaker 1: because I go slow because I don't want to make
Speaker 1: any noise and spook any game that might be bedded
Speaker 1: down close by. Now, this first story happened not long
Speaker 1: after I got to my spot, climbed into the tree,
Speaker 1: and I settled in. I took off my night vision
Speaker 1: goggles and I hung them from a branch. Dawn was
Speaker 1: still an hour and a half off, so I laid
Speaker 1: back and I got comfortable. The insects and the night
Speaker 1: birds weren't all that chatty yet. I stayed still and
Speaker 1: I listened to the quiet, and then came a tapping sound.
Speaker 1: Something was hitting the rough bark of an oak tree
Speaker 1: close by. I moved my eyes left and right, keeping
Speaker 1: my head still. I didn't see anything, so I let
Speaker 1: it go. Then it happened again, this time on another tree,
Speaker 1: and still it was too close. I was getting ready
Speaker 1: to grab my nods to see what the hell was
Speaker 1: causing that damn tapping sound. When I saw it. It
Speaker 1: landed on a broken branch, perfectly silhouetted against the starry sky.
Speaker 1: It was a small owl, about eight inches tall. I
Speaker 1: nearly laughed out loud. He had been going on from
Speaker 1: spot to spot trying to get a look at me.
Speaker 1: He was only four feet away. He was bobbing his
Speaker 1: head up and down. I knew owls made little to
Speaker 1: no noise when they flew, but this little guy was
Speaker 1: flying and landing around within fi of me for twenty minutes.
Speaker 1: It was too cool. A few weeks later, I was
Speaker 1: enjoying a beautiful afternoon sitting in a tree. There was
Speaker 1: little wind, and there was lots of sun, and the
Speaker 1: temperature was in the forties. Out of the corner of
Speaker 1: my eye caught movement. It was coming toward me from
Speaker 1: the east. I turned my head slowly and looked at
Speaker 1: what I thought was the biggest coyote I'd ever seen
Speaker 1: in my life. Sweet buttery, Jesus, I realized that is
Speaker 1: not a coyote. It was twenty five yards away when
Speaker 1: it froze and sniffed the air, and it turned away
Speaker 1: northward at a trot, all the while looking for whatever
Speaker 1: spook did. It was a wolf. Now that's a big deal,
Speaker 1: because wolves have been extinct in Texas for fifty years.
Speaker 1: I'm sure what I saw that day was a Mexican
Speaker 1: red wolf, a fairly contented species, with some scientists arguing
Speaker 1: it's a separate species entirely goes on to say thanks
Speaker 1: for your channel, please keep up your off topic rants
Speaker 1: and bad pronunciation. We're Southern rednecks and we said the
Speaker 1: way we want to say it. You damn right about
Speaker 1: that if most people won't that We're not scared to
Speaker 1: mispronounce a word. So I'm not unique among people in
Speaker 1: my area. But this is a cool story, and it
Speaker 1: sounds like a story that I read a couple of
Speaker 1: years ago about a guy who and this could be
Speaker 1: the same story, and that maybe maybe I didn't file
Speaker 1: it right, but any at any rate, it was still
Speaker 1: worth reading again because I do a lot of reading
Speaker 1: on coyotes. For some reason, I'm fascinated with that animal.
Speaker 1: And I'm not going to bore you with all the
Speaker 1: things that I've learned about coyotes, but I have read
Speaker 1: us by some really reputable biologists that the coyotes are
Speaker 1: breeding with you know, kydies will breed with domestic dogs.
Speaker 1: And I can't remember exactly how the article went, but
Speaker 1: you know, the red wolf was prominent even where I live,
Speaker 1: all the way south in Louisiana and Texas and South Alabama,
Speaker 1: South Mississippi and even northern Florida, and I think on
Speaker 1: down the Peninsula of Florida, and it's pretty much considered
Speaker 1: extinct now, but there's a gene somewhere in the coyote
Speaker 1: line that keeps coming back. It seems like that was
Speaker 1: the gist of the article. If anybody knows anything about that,
Speaker 1: make a comment about it. But they're saying that the
Speaker 1: red wolf could come back in a different form, and
Speaker 1: wouldn't that be cool? But I do not doubt for
Speaker 1: a minute this man saw a red wolf in Texas.
Speaker 1: And when I read that article, it made me think
Speaker 1: of the story. That's how I know. I read it
Speaker 1: a couple of years ago on this channel. Anyway, I'm
Speaker 1: just running off the somebody commented on my last video.
Speaker 1: I think he was from He's either from the UK
Speaker 1: or Australia because he called me Mike. But he's like, dude,
Speaker 1: quit running your mouth between stories. Just get to the story.
Speaker 1: And I tend to agree with that. I don't like
Speaker 1: to watch videos where people just blaber blaber blabber yack
Speaker 1: yack yack, But sometimes something just hits me and I
Speaker 1: just ramble on about it. So if you'll excuse that
Speaker 1: every once in a while and just give me some
Speaker 1: grace on that because sometimes these stories make me remember
Speaker 1: things and I just kind of, I don't know, I
Speaker 1: feel like telling you about it. So there's that. I
Speaker 1: appreciate you listening to the story, and thank you to
Speaker 1: the writer for sending it to me. It was really good.
Speaker 1: I love the story. Appreciate it. I had an encounter
Speaker 1: with La Rona when I was eight. It was just
Speaker 1: after my mother passed away. My cousins and I were
Speaker 1: playing behind my uncle's home, where a creek ran through
Speaker 1: the village. The creek was surrounded by willowy trees, though
Speaker 1: they were all dead despite the water. We were jumping
Speaker 1: around the creek and playing tag when a far away,
Speaker 1: ghoulish wailing cry carried down the water. Up until then
Speaker 1: we could hear all the fauna in the forest, But
Speaker 1: when the howl rose in pitch, not another sound could
Speaker 1: be heard. The atmosphere went dead, silent, and a chill
Speaker 1: crept into the warmth of the day, and we were frozen.
Speaker 1: My cousin's head slowly looked down the creek. Whatever it
Speaker 1: was they had seen it before. I felt my skin
Speaker 1: go cold, and I followed their gaze. Sweeping slowly toward us.
Speaker 1: Over the water was a black cowl covered figure, growing
Speaker 1: in size as it approached. My cousins started shouting run
Speaker 1: before she gave but you run, They pleaded, but I
Speaker 1: didn't move. I thought they were tricking me until it
Speaker 1: got closer. It was floating above the water, a skeleton
Speaker 1: covered in a wraith like black cowl, whipping in the breeze.
Speaker 1: It had moved seventy five yards toward us in mere seconds.
Speaker 1: I didn't know a lot, but I knew enough that
Speaker 1: no human could travel that distance that fast. And then
Speaker 1: it got closer. I wanted to run, but I couldn't.
Speaker 1: It was like I'd been placed in ice. My body
Speaker 1: was frozen still, except for the eyes fixed on this
Speaker 1: horrible creature inching closer. It was a skeleton of a woman,
Speaker 1: her bony hand raised toward me, and then her crying intensified.
Speaker 1: She was screeching and wailing. The unearthly sound of it
Speaker 1: pierced my skull. I could hear my cousins. They were
Speaker 1: shrieking just before the woman touched me. My cousin's cries
Speaker 1: for help broke me out of the hypnotic state, and
Speaker 1: then I could move, and we ran for our lives,
Speaker 1: away from the creek toward the hut, screaming and crying
Speaker 1: and asking anyone for help. The adults demanded to know
Speaker 1: what we were running from. Creek wasn't that far from
Speaker 1: the house, but they hadn't heard a thing. My cousins
Speaker 1: did all the talking because I couldn't sleep. As soon
Speaker 1: as they spat out the words La Lorona, the adults
Speaker 1: understood what had happened. We weren't allowed to go to
Speaker 1: the water after that. That was the first time and
Speaker 1: the last time I saw that unholy demon, and I
Speaker 1: have never forgotten it. My cousins later explained to me
Speaker 1: all the other creatures their parents had warned them against.
Speaker 1: Some of the stories made my skin crawl. What stayed
Speaker 1: with me was the idea of all the unknown entities
Speaker 1: roaming the earth. I never lie or downplace stories of
Speaker 1: ghosts or creatures that go bump in the night. I
Speaker 1: studied the Bible for explanations, those that no man can give. Okay,
Speaker 1: here's a story from this is kind of funny because Rebecca,
Speaker 1: she gives me notes at the beginning of these emails,
Speaker 1: because she's read them, and she's organized them and got
Speaker 1: them ready for me to read. And she says that
Speaker 1: this man actually asks if I would please mention his name.
Speaker 1: So this is an email from John in Pittsburgh. Anyway,
Speaker 1: onto the story. I was working as a security guard
Speaker 1: at a small children's hospital here in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, back
Speaker 1: in twenty twelve. I hadn't had any family for some time,
Speaker 1: so whenever a holiday came around, I volunteered to work
Speaker 1: so others could spend time with their loved ones. That's
Speaker 1: why I ended up doing a double shift from three
Speaker 1: in the afternoon to seven am the next morning. That
Speaker 1: was from Christmas Eve to Christmas Day. The hospital was
Speaker 1: only three stories high. On the first floor were a
Speaker 1: special needs daycare center, the security desk where all visitors
Speaker 1: had to sign in, and the elevator to the upper floors.
Speaker 1: The second floor had eight bedrooms, a communal kitchen and
Speaker 1: a living room for the parents of the six children
Speaker 1: to live in while their kids were being treated, and
Speaker 1: a small room halfway down the hallway between the elevator
Speaker 1: and the bedrooms called the boutique. This room contained all
Speaker 1: sorts of donated personal items for families and other children
Speaker 1: of the patients. On the third floor were the actual
Speaker 1: hospital facilities, mostly for premature infants and small children, and
Speaker 1: when I started my shift, I went around and I
Speaker 1: checked the whole building, from the attic where the heating
Speaker 1: unit was, to the basement where the plumbing and other
Speaker 1: machinery were. After doing this, I would take up a
Speaker 1: station by the second floor elevator. Another guard was stationed
Speaker 1: at the security desk in the lobby, and once an
Speaker 1: hour I would get up and do a walk through
Speaker 1: of the three floors so I had a good sense
Speaker 1: of who was in the building and where they were.
Speaker 1: This was a very busy day with families coming in
Speaker 1: and out to visit the children. Whenever visitors arrived, the
Speaker 1: other guard would radio me to escort them to where
Speaker 1: they wanted to go. After more than seven hours, most
Speaker 1: of the visitors had left the building and most of
Speaker 1: the families who lived there had returned. I had escorted
Speaker 1: them to the living area and bedrooms and as I
Speaker 1: had to unlock the doors for them. At eleven PM,
Speaker 1: a different guard, Dorothy, started working, and she preferred sitting
Speaker 1: in the lobby overdoing rounds, and I went back to
Speaker 1: the second floor hallway. At around ten minutes before midnight,
Speaker 1: Dorothy radioed me that the last couple staying in the
Speaker 1: hospital had returned and needed me to escort them to
Speaker 1: their room and unlock the door. Well. I greeted them
Speaker 1: at the second floor elevator and we started walking down
Speaker 1: the hallway it was maybe sixty feet long, and passed
Speaker 1: the boutique to their room. As we passed the boutique,
Speaker 1: I could see through the narrow window that someone was inside.
Speaker 1: I hurried down the hallway and quickly unlocked the door
Speaker 1: for the couple, and then turned and headed up the
Speaker 1: hall to see who was in there. I was mad
Speaker 1: as hell. It was Christmas Eve and here were people
Speaker 1: stealing from a charity, or at least that's what I thought. Now.
Speaker 1: I'm a big goon of a guy. I'm over six
Speaker 1: feet tall, and I have plenty of muscle, and I
Speaker 1: have quite a temper too. The only thing I could
Speaker 1: think of was that when I was off doing rounds,
Speaker 1: some people must have sneaked down the backstairs and we're
Speaker 1: now helping them to the room full of toys. I
Speaker 1: clearly saw a little girl, maybe five years old, and
Speaker 1: she was kneeling down behind the window, and there had
Speaker 1: to be other people with her, I thought. I reached
Speaker 1: out and grabbed the door handle, expecting it to fly
Speaker 1: open so I could catch the low life thieves in
Speaker 1: the act, and I damn near broke my wrist. The
Speaker 1: door was locked. That it's no problem. I used key
Speaker 1: and I went in. But there was nothing to see.
Speaker 1: There was no one to catch. This was a small room,
Speaker 1: maybe twelve by twenty, with only one entrance and a
Speaker 1: few racks and shelves for clothes and toys. This couldn't
Speaker 1: be possible. I was puzzled. Saw a radio down to Dorothy,
Speaker 1: and I asked her if anyone had just come past her.
Speaker 1: She said no, no one had come through. I knew
Speaker 1: I had just seen a little white girl, maybe five
Speaker 1: years old. She was wearing a red and white checkered
Speaker 1: cap with ear flaps tied down with the bow, and
Speaker 1: a matching jacket. She was kneeling, but I could see
Speaker 1: that she was wearing a red skirt with white leggings
Speaker 1: and black leather Mary Janees. I was less than two
Speaker 1: feet away from her when I passed the window, and
Speaker 1: I know what I saw, So back inside I went.
Speaker 1: There was no one inside at all. I looked into
Speaker 1: the hall to see if somehow a reflection from the
Speaker 1: windows there could have played a trick on me. That
Speaker 1: wasn't the case. There had to be an explanation, So
Speaker 1: I went back in and stood in the exact spot
Speaker 1: where the little girl was. Well, that's when things got
Speaker 1: really weird. As I stood there, a feeling of absolute
Speaker 1: sadness and despair came over me. But it wasn't my
Speaker 1: emotions I was experiencing. It was as if I were
Speaker 1: feeling the little girl's emotions. Tears began running down my
Speaker 1: face uncontrollably, and then when I stepped back from where
Speaker 1: she was kneel, feeling the emotions vanished. I was feeling
Speaker 1: completely wrecked by now, mentally and physically, drained of all energy.
Speaker 1: And then it hit me. I looked at my watch
Speaker 1: and I saw that it was after midnight on Christmas Day,
Speaker 1: and right where the little girl was kneeling, hanging up
Speaker 1: on the wall where some beautiful, smiling Barbie dolls, the
Speaker 1: kind that any little girl would love in treasure, and
Speaker 1: the little girl saw I was looking at them. Back
Speaker 1: down came the tears. This time the emotions were all mine.
Speaker 1: All I could think of was how sad it was
Speaker 1: that this child wanted to hold and play with those dolls.
Speaker 1: But goodn't here. She is all alone on Christmas, and
Speaker 1: like any other little girl, she just wanted a doll
Speaker 1: to love on. I never believed in ghosts or supernatural entities,
Speaker 1: but right then everything I believed had gone out the window.
Speaker 1: This hit me hard, kind of like the Twilight Zone
Speaker 1: meet Santa Claus. I left the room and went down
Speaker 1: to the first floor, and fortunately nobody was around except Dorothy.
Speaker 1: I guess she could see that something was wrong with me,
Speaker 1: and since I liked her a lot, I told her
Speaker 1: what happened. Also told her that there was no way
Speaker 1: I was going back up there until after dawn. I
Speaker 1: took a few days off after that, and when I
Speaker 1: returned to work, I spoke to another guard about what
Speaker 1: I had experienced. His name was Wilburn. He was in
Speaker 1: his eighties, and he was a mean and miserable old
Speaker 1: man that no other guards wanted to work with. But
Speaker 1: Hen and I got along just fine. Wilbur liked to
Speaker 1: do what I had been doing for Christmas evenight, sat
Speaker 1: by the second floor elevator and guard the hallway. I
Speaker 1: approached him hesitantly and I told him my story. I
Speaker 1: didn't want him to think that I was a nut.
Speaker 1: I asked him if he had ever seen anything unusual
Speaker 1: on the second floor, and his answer floored me. He said, well,
Speaker 1: nothing except those two little dead girls that hang around
Speaker 1: by the boutique. I could barely catch my breath. I
Speaker 1: told him I'd only seen one of them, and he
Speaker 1: told me that I should have looked around inside some more,
Speaker 1: because they're always together. He said this like he was
Speaker 1: telling me about what he had for lunch, not discussing
Speaker 1: dead the spirits of children. When my story got around
Speaker 1: the hospital, different nurses and staff came up to me
Speaker 1: when no one else wanted to and told me stories
Speaker 1: of things that had happened to them too. And let
Speaker 1: me tell you that place is one big haunted house.
Speaker 1: And then he signs off yours truly, John from Pittsburgh. John,
Speaker 1: thank you for that story. It was great. These stories
Speaker 1: from people who have worked in these institutions, hospitals of
Speaker 1: elderly retirement homes, or people who tell stories from those
Speaker 1: places always have strange, unusual, interesting stories, so I really
Speaker 1: appreciated this. Okay, here's a Bigfoot story. I got my
Speaker 1: first jeep in twenty sixteen, and I slowly learned the
Speaker 1: ropes of camping and overlanding. I joined a few off
Speaker 1: road clubs and started planning regular camping trips with my
Speaker 1: girlfriend at the time. I quickly went from camping in
Speaker 1: a sleeping bag on the ground to an expert level
Speaker 1: setup that made camping in the woods feel like a
Speaker 1: home away from home. In twenty and sixteen, my girlfriend
Speaker 1: and I took a trip from Los Angeles to Portland, Oregon,
Speaker 1: to visit some of her friends and get some time outdoors.
Speaker 1: Along the way, we detoured now and then to go
Speaker 1: off roading. On one of these excursions, we spent the
Speaker 1: better part of two hours taking my new jeep up
Speaker 1: mining and logging roads to some ideal mountain and valley
Speaker 1: views with to no one else in sight. At one point,
Speaker 1: we stopped to take in the view when we heard
Speaker 1: a blood curdling scream off in the distance. It sounded
Speaker 1: like a woman being murdered. Screaming repeated a few times,
Speaker 1: and I remember asking my girlfriend who the hell would
Speaker 1: be out here screaming like that. She shrugged and said,
Speaker 1: I don't know. That was the end of that. Later,
Speaker 1: at a nearby tourist attraction, we found a big book
Speaker 1: where locals wrote about their Bigfoot experiences. That's the first
Speaker 1: time the idea of Bigfoot was planted in my head.
Speaker 1: Four years later and I had a brand new jeep,
Speaker 1: Wrangler Rubicon, a giant but sweet mastive, and a new girlfriend.
Speaker 1: My love of the outdoors was still going strong, and
Speaker 1: at every opportunity I was heading into the wild. By
Speaker 1: this time, I was a full blown believer in Bigfoot
Speaker 1: and an avid listener of the Dixie Cryptied podcast. One day,
Speaker 1: I packed up my jeep, called my Faithful Dog, and
Speaker 1: picked up my girlfriend. We arrived at the trailhead close
Speaker 1: to ten am and hopped out for what we believed
Speaker 1: would be an extraordinary four to five hour hike into
Speaker 1: the mountains near central La County. A little way into
Speaker 1: our hike, we reached the top of the winding path
Speaker 1: that would take us into the bowl shaped valley where
Speaker 1: the trail ended. The soft dirt was still slightly wet
Speaker 1: from rain and had fallen earlier that day, and the
Speaker 1: air was fresh and clean, giving us a good view
Speaker 1: for miles around. We continued down the trail and came
Speaker 1: to a bush blocking the narrow path. When we got
Speaker 1: to it, I saw it had been pulled out of
Speaker 1: the ground and intentionally placed there. It was an odd
Speaker 1: place for someone to put it, but we navigated around
Speaker 1: it and continued on. Well. One hundred yards later we
Speaker 1: encountered another shrub on the trail. It was big, green
Speaker 1: and ripped out of the ground and placed in our way. Again,
Speaker 1: that was pretty odd, but we walked around it and
Speaker 1: continued on. One hundred yards later sat a larger pile
Speaker 1: of healthy shrubs, all of them uprooted and set on
Speaker 1: the trail, and then another. One hundred yards later, we
Speaker 1: walked to another pile bigger than the last, and then another,
Speaker 1: and then another. We were seeing a clear pattern here,
Speaker 1: and it didn't sit right with me. Anyone who knows
Speaker 1: anything about shrubs growing in southern California mountains knows just
Speaker 1: how tough it is to remove those. There isn't a
Speaker 1: human alive who could pull these plants out of the
Speaker 1: ground with their bare hands. They'd have a hell of
Speaker 1: a time using a shovel. And there were no signs
Speaker 1: of any people at all. As far as we could tell,
Speaker 1: we were the only ones on the trail. Over the
Speaker 1: next mile we encountered at least four more piles of
Speaker 1: bushes blocking the trail, and with each growing pile, our
Speaker 1: suspicion grew. The dirt covering the bush's roots was slightly damp,
Speaker 1: indicating they had just been uprooted. We started to suspect
Speaker 1: something was out there trying to prevent us from going
Speaker 1: any further, but we pressed on. We got to a
Speaker 1: little stream surrounded by small trees and stopped to let
Speaker 1: my dog drink from the fresh water. I was looking around,
Speaker 1: taking the area in when I noticed the branches above
Speaker 1: our heads were twisted, not just one or two, but
Speaker 1: all of them. Everywhere I looked, hiw off the ground,
Speaker 1: branches twisted and braided together, some of them snapped cleanly off,
Speaker 1: resting at peculiar angles. I'd never seen anything like this.
Speaker 1: There's a bigfoot down here, I said. My girlfriend wasn't
Speaker 1: so quick to agree, but when I pointed to the
Speaker 1: strange twists in the branches, she began to get the picture.
Speaker 1: And we moved on to our final destination, and my
Speaker 1: head was on a swivel, looking for anything that seemed
Speaker 1: out of place, any sign of bigfoot. A few minutes later,
Speaker 1: we ran into a literal wall of evidence blocking the trail.
Speaker 1: Ahead was a massive wall of freshly pulled up trees, bushes,
Speaker 1: and dead wood. It was no less than nine feet
Speaker 1: wide and six feet tall, and there was no way
Speaker 1: around it. We were not alone down there, and something
Speaker 1: didn't want us going any further. I was beaming excited
Speaker 1: by what I was seeing, but my girlfriend wasn't. She
Speaker 1: suggested it might be time that we turned around, but
Speaker 1: the explorer in me boldly proclaimed that we would be
Speaker 1: continuing onward. My girlfriend didn't like that, but she relented
Speaker 1: and we maneuvered our way through the wall of shrub.
Speaker 1: The end of the trail was in a bowl shaped
Speaker 1: valley covered in smooth river rocks. We made our way
Speaker 1: to appear Hidden Creek and we started taking photos when
Speaker 1: my girlfriend said that she could feel someone watching us.
Speaker 1: It was a hiking trail, after all, so I shrugged
Speaker 1: it off. A few minutes later she said it again,
Speaker 1: someone's watching us. Someone is here with us. Right then
Speaker 1: we heard footsteps approaching. At first, we thought it was
Speaker 1: another pair of hikers and that we'd run into them
Speaker 1: when we got back to the trail, but when we
Speaker 1: left the Hidden Creek and walked back into the valley,
Speaker 1: there was no one. We decided it was time to go.
Speaker 1: We were on the trail again, heading toward a wall
Speaker 1: of bushes, when behind us we heard a loud, sprinting
Speaker 1: footfall through the valley, as if something were trying to
Speaker 1: get out of sight before we saw it. We turned
Speaker 1: to each other, eyes wide, mouths of gaping, and we
Speaker 1: ran as fast as we could to see it before
Speaker 1: it ran off. We made it to the edge of
Speaker 1: the valley again in time to see something climb halfway
Speaker 1: up the steep cliff face and hide behind some small bushes.
Speaker 1: We could see the rocks falling down the path where
Speaker 1: it had gone up. By then I had seen enough
Speaker 1: evidence to satisfy my appetite for adventure. My girlfriend was
Speaker 1: growing uneasy, and instead of waiting to see if this
Speaker 1: thing would climb the rest of the cliff, we left,
Speaker 1: making our way out as calmly and quickly as we could.
Speaker 1: Two years later, my jeep and I went to Yosemite
Speaker 1: to hike and go off roading. A friend of mine
Speaker 1: tagged along in his own jeep, and we camped in
Speaker 1: our cars and a sequoia tree grove in the Sierra
Speaker 1: National Forest. While we were walking around the beautiful forest,
Speaker 1: I told my friend it would be a great place
Speaker 1: for a bigfoot to live. As luck would have it,
Speaker 1: one morning, while we were walking around exploring, we kept
Speaker 1: hearing a repetitive knocking sound. It wasn't rapid like a woodpecker,
Speaker 1: but it was slow and measured, like rock being hit
Speaker 1: against a tree. Well, listen to it for ten minutes.
Speaker 1: I had isolated the sound to the tree line on
Speaker 1: the far side of the small clearing next to our
Speaker 1: park vehicles. My friend walked toward it, and as soon
Speaker 1: as he got within twenty five feet of the tree,
Speaker 1: the knocking stopped. As soon as he walked away, it
Speaker 1: started again. So we experimented with this for ten minutes.
Speaker 1: Each time one of us got closer to the sound,
Speaker 1: it would stop, and when we walked away it started
Speaker 1: up again. We never felt threatened or afraid. It was
Speaker 1: more like something was out there playing a game with us.
Speaker 1: My life has changed significantly since those days. My loyal
Speaker 1: heaven sent big dog died in twenty twenty, and I
Speaker 1: moved away from southern California and I sold my jeep,
Speaker 1: something I never thought I would do. I don't height
Speaker 1: nearly as much, but Lord knows, I'll find my way
Speaker 1: back to the great outdoors soon. I've been listening to
Speaker 1: your channel for years. Thank you for creating this modern
Speaker 1: community for modern day believers.