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Speaker 1: At two am, every dog of the neighborhood was going crazy.

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My community is small and surrounded by woods, and we

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have coyotes, so I wasn't overly concerned. However, I was

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awake now and I wanted a cigarette. Plus I wanted

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to check my own dog. He's a big boy and

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he can definitely take care of himself, but he's my baby,

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so I just wanted to make sure he was okay.

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I stepped outside and I lit my cigarette. I took

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a look around. He was definitely out of the gate.

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All the other dogs in the area were still losing

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their minds. As I walked down the street to look

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for mine. I found him at the end of the

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main road and I called him over to me and

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I hooked him to the lease i'd brought with. When

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we turned around and started heading back to my place,

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I noticed a figure on the other side of the street.

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It would have explained why the animals were all barking

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like crazy, but it was odd that this figure was

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about the size of a child. Sure, we have people

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walking up and down our streets all the time, even

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late at night, but we don't have any kids around,

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and if we did, it would have been strange to

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see one out this late. My dog lunged at the

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figure and I had to hold tight to keep him

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from breaking loose. I realized just how angry the other

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dogs in the neighborhood were acting at this point. They

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were all leaping at their fences or pulling at their

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chains and snarling and barking like they wanted to fight.

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I had grabbed my spotlight so I could see everything

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clearly as this figure came within six feet of me.

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It wasn't paying me any mind as it walked, but

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I got a good view of it. This was no child.

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This was a sisquatch. It may have been a small one,

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but fear well up inside me as I thought to myself,

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there's probably bigger ones nearby. Well, it ignored me, and

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I was awkwardly trying to ignore it. As it passed,

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I couldn't stop myself from turning around to get one

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more look at it, though, and to my utter shock

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and amazement, it slowly disappeared right in front of me.

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It was like it dissolved. There was no way it

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didn't see me, but it acted like I was never there.

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I didn't smell anything, and it never made any noise.

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All I really want to know now is if anyone

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else has a story of a bigfoot disappearing right in

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front of them, I'd like to know that I'm not

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the only one. I live by State Park in eastern Illinois.

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One day I decided to saddle up my old donkey

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and take a nice long ride along some of the

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many trails the park has to offer. Darling is a

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pretty good old girl. Nothing really bothers her except water.

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I can urge her through it, but she lets me

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know that she ain't happy about it. We were heading

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down the trail and I was enjoying the changing colors

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of the leaves. Fall was extra pretty that year. It

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felt like the trees had an extra batch of leaves,

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and every one of them was a different shade of red, brown, green,

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or yellow. I was paying more attention to the brilliant

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colors than I was to Darling when she started acting skittish.

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I don't know what was making her so jumpy. She

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never acted that way before. But I got her attention

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and we headed on down the trail. We hadn't gone

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much further when I heard something coming up behind us

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through the mass of fallen leaves. I twisted around to

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see what it was, but there was nothing there. It

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gave me an uneasy feeling, so I urged the old

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girl into a trot. Whatever was back there picked up

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its pace to match ours, so I stopped her, and

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whatever was back there stopped too, and then started again

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as soon as we did. Well. This went on for

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a quarter of a mile until I finally stopped and dismounted.

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Darling had her ears pointed straight forward and was snorting

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like she wasn't happy. Well, this prompted me to look

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a little harder at our surroundings. That's when I saw it.

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Lurking behind a tree was a really big brown something

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that kept poking its head out for a quick glance

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at us before pulling back behind the tree. On this

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part of Illinois, we don't have anything like bears. I've

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seen a couple of mountain lions, but this was way

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bigger than that. I guess he got tired of playing

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peekaboo with me, because he finally walked out into the open.

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He was about the biggest animal I had ever seen

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in my life. He was eight feet tall, he had

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no neck, and his shoulders were twice as broad as

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a football player's. His arms were long, going all the

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way down to his knees. Well, he just stood there,

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sort of swaying back and forth while I stood there

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staring at him, until I got nervous and moved up

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toward Darling's head. I didn't know what to do, and

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I know Darling didn't know, So I put my foot

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in the stirrup and I climbed back up on her,

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with every intention of beating a hasty retreat. Before I

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queued Darling to run, though, this thing caught my eye

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with a wave of its hand. It looked like it

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was motioning for me to come over to it. Well,

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I'm sorry, but I wasn't about to walk toward that thing.

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And then it started walking toward me and grunting. I

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didn't wait for it to get to us. I kicked

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Darling into a dead run. I thought we were going

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at a pretty good pace until I looked back and

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I saw that this bigfoot thing wasn't forty feet behind us.

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We were coming up on a fork in the trail, so,

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thinking quickly, I turned Darling down the side trail, and

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I was hoping we might throw it off a bit

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at the very least game and some ground. It wasn't

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until it was too late to take the first path

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that I remembered that this one was going to lead

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us straight to a stream. With Darling's aversion to water,

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I figured this wasn't going to be good, but it

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was too late to turn back now. Taking that quick

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turn did seem to cross our pursuer up a bit.

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We gained another ten feet on him. Darling was moving

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faster now than I'd ever known her too, but that

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stream was coming up fast. In Visions of her slamming

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on her brakes and sending me over her head danced

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through my mind. As I spurred her on to an

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even faster pace. I thought, maybe if we approached the

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water fast enough, she'd get through it without too much trouble.

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But I could see the stream coming up and hear

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the bigfoot closing in at the same time, and my

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heart was racing with fear and anticipation of the worst.

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We hit the water, and Darling ran through it like

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she was half fish. The water turned white and sparkled

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in the sunlight under her hoofs, and she acted like

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it was nothing. As we reached the opposite bank, I

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looked back, and the Bigfoot was gone. Maybe all that

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water splashing startled him, Maybe he just gave up. I

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don't know. What I do know is that I owe

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that Bigfoot a debt of gratitude because after that day,

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Darling never showed any fear of water again. Thanks for

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what you do. It's a true joy to listen to

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your shows. And as to your accent, I grew up

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in a town called Cutting Shoot, and I now live

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in a place called Nameless, Texas. It's a real place.

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Look it up. So I don't think you have an accent.

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Thanks brother. I appreciate that I understand me perfectly well,

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so I don't know why anybody else would have any

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trouble understanding me. Let's get to his story. They'd been

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dating for a couple of months now. The discussion of

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overnight backpacking had come up several times over the weeks,

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and now that the weather was more agreeable, they packed

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their gear and headed north from Houston to the Sam

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Houston National Forest, just outside of Huntsville. Neither of them

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had been there before, but the Internet was loaded with

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the maps and camping suggestions, and the printer was loaded

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with ink. They easily found the parking area and the

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adjacent trailhead. It was lob lolly looped seventeen miles, read

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the sign in a familiar brown and yellow pattern common

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to all the national parks. Great, they thought, eight miles in,

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we'll camp eight miles out. It's just the right length

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without exhausting ourselves. Backpacks were donned and adjusted for the

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perfect fit trekking poles were lengthened, and bandannas were made

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into dew rags. Let's do this, they said to one another,

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and down the trail they marched. He led the way,

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with her close behind. They were young and in good shape,

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and both of them had some steam to blow off

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after a stressful week at their respective downtown Houston corporate jobs.

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The pace was quick, and of course, here were two

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twenty somethings still getting to know one another and hence

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eager to impress the other with their physical prowess. Six

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miles into the trek, they came upon a large curve

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to the right, with thick undergrowth on the inside of

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the curve and a more open stand of pines on

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the outside, with most of the trees between the size

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of the person's arm and thigh suddenly she stopped and

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got his attention to do the same. Did you hear that?

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She said, hear what? He replied, Ah, it's nothing, she said,

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That's just it. It's nothing. No birds, no bugs, not

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even gnats. They've all disappeared. And what does that smell?

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He did indeed smell something, but he couldn't quite put

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his finger on it. It kind of reminded him of

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a roadkill left to bacon the Texas sun. But it

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was faint, like an odor that could only be detected

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when the wind was right. That's to be expected in

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the woods, he thought. But the sudden silence, now that

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was weird. And then it happened, and he saw it

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before he heard it. Out of his peripheral vision. To

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his right, from the undergrowth in the curve, a rock

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flew in a lazy arc and landed with a soft

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thud on the pine nettle covering the ground at his feet.

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It was about the size of a golf ball, and

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it was smooth, like a river rock worn by eons

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of water. And she saw it too, What the hell?

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And the rest of the world was swallowed by their

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rapid succession of events that unfolded in front of her

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Her hiking companion had bent down and picked up a

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dead pine sapling about the size and length of a

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base ball bat. She thought he was going to make

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some macho threat to an unseen rock thrower, but she

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couldn't have been more wrong. She was left speechless by

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what transpired next. He had turned to face the inside

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of the curve in the approximate location from where the

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rock had been thrown. He dropped into what could only

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be described as a batting dance, and he called out,

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it's the top of the nine. With both teams playing

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mostly defensive game, the pennant is riding on this matchup.

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She recognized his weak attempt at sounding like a Howard

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co Sell or a hairy Carey. She hated baseball. She

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was forced to suffer through hours and hours of it

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while sitting with her father when she was a little girl.

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Her father was a wonderful man, and baseball was his

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one fault. A second rock came from the brush, and

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the same softball like arc as the first. Had to

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adjustice position a couple of feet to get lined up

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with the rock, but then made solid contact with the

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projectile and sent it back into the bushes. Off to

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his left base. Hit for the batter, but the runner

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will be held up at second. She heard it in

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the same Howard co cell voice. Then he took the

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batter stance again, and this time the rock was right

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on target in front of him, and he swung and

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he missed. Swinging a miss strike one, said Harry. The

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next pitch went foul. Right strike two, Harry called out.

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Up to this point, she wasn't so much frightened as

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she was dumbfounded. No one would believe this. You can't

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make this crap up. And then she heard two things,

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one curious and one terrifying. She could have sworn she

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heard what sounded like giggling and growling in Japanese coming

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from the undergrowth. Just as she was processing this, aloud

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and commanding voice inside her head said leave now. She

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peed in her hiking shorts and started to quiver. She

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looked at her partner and his response was completely different.

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He had dropped the stick and held both hands up

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in front of him as if he was being held

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at gunpoint. Hey, hey, we meant no harm, he said.

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No need to be ugly about this. We're gonna go

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camp A couple of miles up the trail, drop by

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if you want to, And then, as if a switch

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had been thrown, the birds started chirping, and a murder

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of crows was making an awful racket in the trees

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above them, and the gnats were once again finding annoying

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ways to get into their noses. He turned and looked

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at her, and then, without a word, proceeded up the trail.

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For the next half hour, they said nothing to one another,

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and the only sound from them was the muffled thump

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of hiking boots on the pine needles and the rhythmic

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click of trekking poles. The pea had almost completely dried

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on her shorts when she finally spoke, Look, I need

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you to stop and explain to me exactly what happened

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back there. Are we in danger? If that was what

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I think it was. Are they gonna kill us? I

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feel like running all the way back to the car.

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He turned and said, as smoothly as he could. You

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know how I like to listen to that guy Steve

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from up in Canada on YouTube and that fellow from

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Mississippi who tells all those stories. If you hear enough

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of those encounters, you'll notice a pattern. I'd never thought

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i'd see a sasquatch, much less actually have an encounter.

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Are we in danger? I seriously doubt it, and think

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about it. They're the top tier predators, and if they

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wanted us dead, you'd never see them coming. The whole

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time we've been together. You thought I was enough for

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believing in this stuff, haven't you? What do you think now? Yeah?

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But baseball? She said lightly. That was spontaneous, and I'm

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not sure why I did that. He once again started

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up the trail over his shoulder. He said to her,

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In all likelihood, they will pay us a visit tonight.

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We should probably leave the pop tarts out for them.

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I hope they like brown sugar cinnamon. November sixteen, twenty twelve,

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I was in Lafayette County, Mississippi, raccoon hunting with my

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dad on public land. It was a good spot with

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a lot of logging roads, fire lanes in areas, a

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big timber that we'd been hunting for the ten years prior.

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It was especially good for my dad since he'd had

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a stroke years before and the old logging roads allowed

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him away to get to where the dog had The

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raccoons treed if it weren't too deep in the woods.

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This particular night, we had turned our dog Nikki loose twice,

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and she'd treed raccoons both times. We were proud of

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that dog. It was only about ten thirty, and my dad,

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full of excitement and unwilling to call it a night,

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said let's turn her loose one more time. We pulled

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over to a spot we'd never stopped at before, and

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just as I opened the truck door, a big old

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hoota all cut loose. We sat there and listened for

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a minute before I got Nicki out on a leash.

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I walked her about thirty yards down the woods in

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the direction I wanted her to hunt, and then I

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turned her loose. She tried to ten or fifteen yards

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in front of me and stopped and perked her ears up.

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Three codies started barking somewhere close by to our left,

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and two more answered to our right. I turned my

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light down low, knowing Nicki normally waited for the codies

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to settle down before taking off, and that's when it

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began to howl. It was like flipping a switch. The

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second it started howling, the code went dead silent. I

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turned my light off. At this point, I couldn't identify

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what was making the sound, but I knew I didn't

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want to draw its attention. I'm guessing it, whatever it was,

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was less than one hundred yards away. It howled a

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total of three times, each one so loud I can't

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even begin to describe it. When it finally stopped, I

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realized the entire woods were completely silent. There were no animals,

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no frogs, no crickets, no night birds, nothing but silence.

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I turned my light back on and saw Nicki laying

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flat on the ground with her head between her front legs.

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She was shaking uncontrollably. Come here, Nicki, I called softly.

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She gave me a pitiful look and then used her

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front legs to drag herself over to me, like her

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back legs were paralyzed. She was still trembling out of

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control when I put her back on the leash. I

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turned my light back up on bright, and we started

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walking back to the truck. And that's when I heard

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what sounded like tree limbs popping and shaking. It was

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a long thirty yards getting back out of the woods.

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What in the world was that, Dad asked when we

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made it back I don't know, I answered, but according

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to Nicky, it's time to go. Later, I found a

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recording of the Ohio Howel on YouTube and played it

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for my dad. He got all excited, thinking I'd recorded

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what we heard that night. I told him this was

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a different recording, but we both agreed it was identical

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to the sound we heard that night.