Speaker 1: I never had an experience with Bigfoot, and I don't
Speaker 1: expect I ever will, at least not where I live.
Speaker 1: But after listening to you recount many stories, I'd like
Speaker 1: to share my thoughts with you. You may or may not
Speaker 1: have read the books by Carlos Castanetta. In case you haven't,
Speaker 1: Castanetta's mentor was a yacky Indian named Don Juan, and
Speaker 1: he taught Castanetta sorcery. At least that's what he called
Speaker 1: it to begin with. This was to grab Castanetta's attention,
Speaker 1: but later he called it knowledge. The second book Castanetta
Speaker 1: wrote their Ten of Them is entitled a Separate Reality.
Speaker 1: The key to these realities is the ability to stop
Speaker 1: the internal dialogue or in other words, the constant chit
Speaker 1: chat of thought. If you think about it, we never
Speaker 1: stop thinking. Even when we are sleeping, our minds are active. Apparently,
Speaker 1: when we stop this internal dialogue, we open the door
Speaker 1: to new realities and abilities. So many of the anomalies
Speaker 1: surrounding the Bigfoot experience are almost identical to the experiences
Speaker 1: Don Juan put Castanetta through, like being frozen to the spot,
Speaker 1: or the feeling of being ill, or the now you
Speaker 1: see me. Now, you don't type thing that Bigfoot displays.
Speaker 1: I can't help thinking that due to the fact that
Speaker 1: Bigfoot doesn't have the distractions of the modern world to
Speaker 1: fill his or her mind, he or she has these
Speaker 1: abilities that Don Juan taught Castanetta. I don't think they
Speaker 1: come from other dimensions. Rather, I think some of them
Speaker 1: have mastered the art of stopping the world, as Don
Speaker 1: Juan calls it, in other words, stopping thinking, and they
Speaker 1: can therefore jump from one dimension to another. The reason
Speaker 1: I think this is because there are videos of mother
Speaker 1: Bigfoots with young ones. If they did come from another dimension,
Speaker 1: why on earth would they bring their kids with them.
Speaker 1: That doesn't make sense to me. So I think it's
Speaker 1: more a case that they're from our world but can
Speaker 1: jump into another dimension when cornered. At least some of
Speaker 1: them have this stability. And then he goes on the right.
Speaker 1: Keep the stories coming, buddy. And by the way, I
Speaker 1: love your accent. Oh man, this accent thing. This is
Speaker 1: a big deal to get to some people. I don't
Speaker 1: know why, but it's just the way we talk down here,
Speaker 1: so I can't disguise it anyway. This was an interesting
Speaker 1: email and it's not so much that it has to
Speaker 1: do with Bigfoot, but it intrigues me about this idea
Speaker 1: of being able to stop thinking. I mean, think about that.
Speaker 1: Our minds are working all the time. They never stop working.
Speaker 1: I never stopped thinking. I think all the time, and
Speaker 1: I wonder what it would be like to just in
Speaker 1: a conscious way, remain conscious and stop thinking, go into
Speaker 1: such a deep meditative state that you actually stop thinking
Speaker 1: and kind of go blank for a few minutes. Would
Speaker 1: you stop breathing? Would your heart? Would your involuntary organs
Speaker 1: stop beating like your heart? Would you stop breathing? I
Speaker 1: don't think so, they're involuntary, so, but I don't know.
Speaker 1: I just don't know what that would lead to, but
Speaker 1: it is a fascinating concept. Sometimes. I've read a few
Speaker 1: things about this remote viewing phenomenon that I think even
Speaker 1: our military has used were people I'm not even sure
Speaker 1: exactly what it is. That's how dumb I that's what
Speaker 1: a moron I am with this stuff. I don't I
Speaker 1: just don't have time to read up on it. But
Speaker 1: it's interesting stuff to me, and I myself would love
Speaker 1: to be able to just shut my mind down, man,
Speaker 1: just for fifteen minutes a day. That would be fantastic.
Speaker 1: And I wonder if I did, could I transport myself
Speaker 1: to another place? Maybe not physically, but psychologically go to
Speaker 1: another place. I don't know if that's even feasible or not,
Speaker 1: but the whole concept is fascinating and if it has
Speaker 1: to do with Bigfoot, it would make perfect sense. Now
Speaker 1: here's the thing. We can all have opinions on any
Speaker 1: of this stuff because none of us know anything about Bigfoot.
Speaker 1: And if you think you do know something, you really don't.
Speaker 1: You really don't. You're just acting like you do because
Speaker 1: we don't know anything about these things, and all opinions
Speaker 1: and ideas are up in the air. I mean, we
Speaker 1: can come up with anything we want. This one seems
Speaker 1: very interesting to me. Hope you guys enjoyed his theory.
Speaker 1: Thanks Keith for sending the email. Please accept the following account.
Speaker 1: It is true and has turned me from a disinterested
Speaker 1: skeptic into a thoroughly fence sitter. All right, here we go,
Speaker 1: That's what he writes. All right, here we go. Let
Speaker 1: me preface my story by saying that although I grew
Speaker 1: up in a suburb of Raleigh, North Carolina, I've always
Speaker 1: been a country boy at heart. My paternal grandparents had
Speaker 1: a farm in central North Carolina, and when I wasn't there,
Speaker 1: I wanted to be. There were rolling hills, creeks, and
Speaker 1: milo fields, separated by tracks of hardwoods teeming with squirrels, rabbits,
Speaker 1: and quail. Some of the happiest times of my life
Speaker 1: were spent on this farm, roaming the woods, camping, hunting,
Speaker 1: and fishing. For a young boy who craved adventure, it
Speaker 1: was paradise. I would disappear into the woods for days.
Speaker 1: Back then, it simply wasn't a big deal for a
Speaker 1: young boy to go off camping by himself, as long
Speaker 1: as his parents had a general idea as to where
Speaker 1: he would be and when he would get back. Looking back,
Speaker 1: I was probably safer in the woods on my grandfather's
Speaker 1: farm than just about anywhere else. There are no dangerous
Speaker 1: animals in this part of the state, and the only
Speaker 1: things that caused me concern were ticks, chiggers, and the
Speaker 1: occasional copperhead. When I wasn't playing Daniel Boone on the farm,
Speaker 1: I would often go on trips with my boy Scout
Speaker 1: troop in the nearby Ywary. He spelled it out phanatically
Speaker 1: for me, you warri and see I pronounced it wrong.
Speaker 1: In the nearby Yuari National Forest, if you aren't familiar
Speaker 1: with it, this National Forest is about fifty one thousand acres,
Speaker 1: with most of it in Montgomery County. I've hiked a
Speaker 1: considerable amount of this forest, sometimes willingly and sometimes begrudgingly,
Speaker 1: due to a directionally challenged assistant scout master who we
Speaker 1: nicknamed lost Again Lewis Oh. That's so his shortcuts could
Speaker 1: turn a five mile day hike into a twenty mile
Speaker 1: overnight hike. I mention all this simply to establish that
Speaker 1: from an early age I would regularly spend time in
Speaker 1: the woods. I'm familiar with the local animals, and I
Speaker 1: don't spook easily. Unfortunately, when relating a story such as this,
Speaker 1: you feel obligated to qualify yourself in order to preemptively
Speaker 1: silence some of the questions from armchair synics. I've never
Speaker 1: really understood why, but to me, a lot of the
Speaker 1: Yuari National Forest has a foreboding feel. There are places that,
Speaker 1: even on a sunny day and winter when all the
Speaker 1: leaves have fallen, seem unnaturally dark and sinister. Several books
Speaker 1: written by local folkloreist Fred Morgan support this observation and
Speaker 1: contain many accounts of disconcerting and often violent events that
Speaker 1: have occurred in the area. In early March of twenty twelve,
Speaker 1: I had a little time off and I decided to
Speaker 1: load up my old land Rover and head out for
Speaker 1: a remote camping spot in the northwest Uaris. I've always
Speaker 1: preferred to hike, hunt and fish and camp alone. To me,
Speaker 1: the solitude is cathartic. To my delight, the campground I
Speaker 1: chose was completely deserted. There was a host site that
Speaker 1: contained an older travel trailer, but its condition indicated that
Speaker 1: it was abandoned. I selected a site at the very
Speaker 1: end of a loop road, as far from the unoccupied
Speaker 1: trailer and as close to the dense woods as I
Speaker 1: could get. I planned on being there at least four
Speaker 1: or five days, so I set up my large, six
Speaker 1: person Cabella's dome tent rather than my smaller backpacking tent.
Speaker 1: After eating supper, I decided to turn in early. It
Speaker 1: was already getting dark and I was bushed. I settled
Speaker 1: into my sleeping bag and turned off my lantern and
Speaker 1: was very quickly fast asleep. Around midnight, I was awoken
Speaker 1: by a distant howl that my sleep addle mind tells
Speaker 1: me is probably a wolf, even though I know there
Speaker 1: are no wolves in central North Carolina. In response to
Speaker 1: the cry, a pack of dogs began to bay. I
Speaker 1: lay still for a few minutes, listening to all the racket,
Speaker 1: but soon it died down and all was quiet. Having
Speaker 1: heard many odd noises while in the woods, and being
Speaker 1: a pragmatic I chuckled to myself and tried to go
Speaker 1: back to sleep. My sixth sense was tapping me on
Speaker 1: the shoulder in saying that something wasn't exactly right, but
Speaker 1: I closed my eyes anyway. Ten to fifteen minutes later,
Speaker 1: as I began to drift back to sleep, the howls repeated,
Speaker 1: and this time it was closer. Again. It was a
Speaker 1: similar cry of a wolf, but the tone wasn't right.
Speaker 1: It was lower and deeper. The dogs again reacted with
Speaker 1: a chorus of yowling, but they seemed rather far away.
Speaker 1: They were reacting to an unknown coller, but they were
Speaker 1: not following it, or it had eluded them. At this point,
Speaker 1: I was a bit puzzled, but certainly not scared. It
Speaker 1: bothered me that I couldn't identify the animal that was
Speaker 1: making the yells. But I knew for an absolute fact
Speaker 1: that there were no dangerous animals in this part of
Speaker 1: the state. Also, I had a pistol on me, and
Speaker 1: what were the eyes that this animal, whatever it was,
Speaker 1: would come directly to me into my camp. There was
Speaker 1: no chance at all. Right, Again, I shrugged and closed
Speaker 1: my eyes. This time I fell into a deep, comfortable sleep.
Speaker 1: Forty five minutes later, I'm jolted away by a rumbling
Speaker 1: bellow that seemed right on top of me, and it
Speaker 1: was just as loud, very loud. My first thought, as
Speaker 1: I shook the sleep from my head was that someone
Speaker 1: outside my tent was roaring at me through a bullhorn.
Speaker 1: It was so close, so unidentifiable, and so loud that
Speaker 1: I was immediately terrified. Even more disturbingly, as the scream
Speaker 1: slowly died out, it was replaced by heavy breathing and
Speaker 1: bipedal footsteps in the leaf litter heading towards my tent.
Speaker 1: I tried to convince myself that this must be a
Speaker 1: person playing a dangerous practical joke, but the steps were
Speaker 1: much too heavy. I remember having the bizarre thought that
Speaker 1: this prankster must be stomping around with anvils tied to
Speaker 1: their shoes, and that absurd idea made me quickly realize
Speaker 1: that this was no prank. There was an exceptionally large
Speaker 1: and angry animal outside my tent, and I had no
Speaker 1: idea what it was. Sitting up but still halfway in
Speaker 1: my sleeping bag, I slowly and quietly scooched to the
Speaker 1: middle of the large tent, ridiculously believing that somehow being
Speaker 1: in the center would provide some safety. I quietly grabbed
Speaker 1: my compact nine millimeter out of my duffel bag, and
Speaker 1: I slowly flipped the safety and I listened. When you're
Speaker 1: truly frightened, you feel flushed. Your senses seemed to sharpen,
Speaker 1: and time appears to slow down. I could hear every
Speaker 1: leaf and twig that broke under this creature's feet as
Speaker 1: it approached. I also vividly recall turning my head towards
Speaker 1: the oncoming noise, and with each footfall, seeing small ripples
Speaker 1: being created and a half empty bottle of water across
Speaker 1: the dark tent, exactly like in the first Jurassic Park movie.
Speaker 1: Options ran through my mind. I could yell out and
Speaker 1: hope that whatever this was would be startled and leave.
Speaker 1: I could step out of the tent and confront it.
Speaker 1: I could remain quiet and see what happened. I had
Speaker 1: no idea what was outside, so I decided to sit
Speaker 1: still and wait. The footsteps were getting closer, but they
Speaker 1: slowed in pace. They stopped at what I guess would
Speaker 1: be about ten feet away from my tent. I had
Speaker 1: my pistol pointed in this thing's direction, and I was
Speaker 1: debating whether to fire off a couple of blind rounds
Speaker 1: through the tent wall. I'm very conscious about gun safety
Speaker 1: and would normally never consider this, but abject terror can
Speaker 1: result in bad decisions. In retrospect, I genuinely believe that
Speaker 1: had this creature taken another couple of steps towards me,
Speaker 1: I would have emptied the clip. Thankfully I didn't. The
Speaker 1: animal was now standing still, and it began making an
Speaker 1: odd snuffling sound that led me to believe it was
Speaker 1: smelling the air. It reminded me of a pig running,
Speaker 1: only deeper, and it was all followed by a long
Speaker 1: and heavy excel. The animal was a few feet outside,
Speaker 1: sniffing and grunning and snorting, trying to determine its next step,
Speaker 1: and I was sitting in the middle of the tent,
Speaker 1: sweating and horrified, with a death grip on my little pistol.
Speaker 1: This went on for what seemed like several minutes, though
Speaker 1: more likely it was only thirty to forty seconds. I
Speaker 1: was so tense that my arm holding the pistol began
Speaker 1: to shake, and I felt like I was going to hyperventilate.
Speaker 1: I felt that I was close to a physical and
Speaker 1: mental breaking point, and I knew that I desperately needed
Speaker 1: for this to end. After a few more frantic seconds
Speaker 1: of thought, I realized that, for good or bad, I
Speaker 1: must try to take control of the situation. I resolved
Speaker 1: to quietly slip out of my sleeping bag, slit open
Speaker 1: the back tent, and jump out, ready to shoot. I
Speaker 1: made a bit of noise while trying to slide my
Speaker 1: legs out of the sleeping bag, and the animal let
Speaker 1: out a grunt that almost sounded like a question. There
Speaker 1: was an upward inflection at the end of the noise
Speaker 1: that made me think it might have been confused. Looking back,
Speaker 1: I believe it may not have been certain that I
Speaker 1: was in the tent until I heard the movement. I froze,
Speaker 1: and for a few more seconds there was an absolute
Speaker 1: and terrifying silence. Then there was a deep in what
Speaker 1: I imagined to be a derisive grunt. It sounded like a
Speaker 1: bull snorting, but seemed to have an almost cynical tone.
Speaker 1: It then began to stomp off in the direction from
Speaker 1: which it came, grunting loudly with every step. As this
Speaker 1: thing trudged off, I heard a loud cracking sound, as
Speaker 1: if a large tree branch was being broken, and then
Speaker 1: another deafening roar, the sound of something being dragged in
Speaker 1: the leaves, and heavy footsteps continued to move away. I
Speaker 1: stayed perfectly quiet until I couldn't hear it any longer,
Speaker 1: and then I took a deep breath to relieve some
Speaker 1: of the stress in my body. I was still on alert,
Speaker 1: but slowly beginning to relax a little. After a few
Speaker 1: more minutes of silence, I decided that the animal was
Speaker 1: probably gone, but there was no way that I was
Speaker 1: going to spend the rest of the night in that flimsy,
Speaker 1: nih line tent. I grabbed my car keys and stealthily
Speaker 1: unzipped the tent and crept to my vehicle. My pistol
Speaker 1: was still in my hand. I would drive to the
Speaker 1: closest town, find a well lit parking lot, and sleep
Speaker 1: in my car. Tomorrow I would go back to collect
Speaker 1: my gear. So I fired up my rover and turned
Speaker 1: on the headlights, and to my horror, there was a
Speaker 1: large tree limb about ten feet in front of the
Speaker 1: truck blocking my exit. It was big enough that I
Speaker 1: don't think I could drive over it without doing some
Speaker 1: significant damage to my vehicle, but it was not so
Speaker 1: large that I couldn't drag it partially out of the
Speaker 1: way and drive around it. I decided, however, that I
Speaker 1: wasn't going to get out of my car until daylight.
Speaker 1: I turned off the lights, I lowered my seat all
Speaker 1: the way back, I rolled my window down about a
Speaker 1: half inch so I could hear, and I turned off
Speaker 1: the ignition. The rest of the night is a blur
Speaker 1: to me. Now. I didn't go back to sleep, but
Speaker 1: there were times that I wasn't completely awake either. I
Speaker 1: would start to not off, but my mind would not
Speaker 1: allow it. Thankfully, nothing else happened, and at first light
Speaker 1: I was able to break camp and move the tree
Speaker 1: branch enough to get my vehicle out. When I returned home,
Speaker 1: my wife immediately asked why are you back so soon?
Speaker 1: I didn't want to lie, but I simply couldn't figure
Speaker 1: out a way to explain what had happened without sounding
Speaker 1: like a lunatic. So I just made up a story
Speaker 1: about not realizing that there was no self service, that
Speaker 1: I didn't feel comfortable being out of touch with her
Speaker 1: for four or five days. Again, before this incident, I
Speaker 1: had no real interest in cryptids. However, I immediately began reading
Speaker 1: everything I could on them, focusing on reports from the
Speaker 1: Yuari region. To my great surprise, I found several accounts
Speaker 1: from this area, including a rather famous one. I learned
Speaker 1: that I was remarkably close to the sighting made by
Speaker 1: Michael Greene I think that's his name, who at the
Speaker 1: time was involved with the BFRO in North Carolina, and
Speaker 1: who had recorded thermal video of a humanoid figure snatching
Speaker 1: a candy bar from the top of a tree stump
Speaker 1: at a family gathering. Not long afterwards, my maternal grandmother,
Speaker 1: who grew up just outside the northwest boundary of the forest,
Speaker 1: became upset when she was told I had been camping
Speaker 1: there alone. She said that I shouldn't go there by myself,
Speaker 1: and it was too dangerous. Well, When I asked her why,
Speaker 1: she wouldn't give me a straight answer. She would simply repeat,
Speaker 1: just don't go there alone. You should not go there alone.
Speaker 1: I'm still not convinced that I had an encounter with
Speaker 1: the hairy linebacker, but I don't know what animal walks
Speaker 1: on two feet and causes the ground to vibrate, roars
Speaker 1: louder than a lion, and breaks tree limbs. If you
Speaker 1: can come up with one, please let me know. However,
Speaker 1: I didn't actually see anything, and the more practical side
Speaker 1: of me believes that there must be a rational explanation.
Speaker 1: If it was a bigfoot, then I'm glad I didn't
Speaker 1: see it, and I'm very happy not having a close
Speaker 1: up image of that ugly mug in my head. The
Speaker 1: event alarmed me enough that I didn't go into the
Speaker 1: woods for a while, but I couldn't stay away for long.
Speaker 1: I gave away my tents, I bought some larger guns,
Speaker 1: and eventually I purchased a small travel trailer. When I'm
Speaker 1: out overnight. Now I sleep like a baby. Maybe it's
Speaker 1: a false sense of security, but helps were made