Speaker 1: At two am, every dog of the neighborhood was going crazy.
Speaker 1: My community is small and surrounded by woods, and we
Speaker 1: have coyotes, so I wasn't overly concerned. However, I was
Speaker 1: awake now and I wanted a cigarette. Plus I wanted
Speaker 1: to check my own dog. He's a big boy and
Speaker 1: he can definitely take care of himself, but he's my baby,
Speaker 1: so I just wanted to make sure he was okay.
Speaker 1: I stepped outside and I lit my cigarette. I took
Speaker 1: a look around. He was definitely out of the gate.
Speaker 1: All the other dogs in the area were still losing
Speaker 1: their minds. As I walked down the street to look
Speaker 1: for mine. I found him at the end of the
Speaker 1: main road and I called him over to me and
Speaker 1: I hooked him to the lease i'd brought with. When
Speaker 1: we turned around and started heading back to my place,
Speaker 1: I noticed a figure on the other side of the street.
Speaker 1: It would have explained why the animals were all barking
Speaker 1: like crazy, but it was odd that this figure was
Speaker 1: about the size of a child. Sure, we have people
Speaker 1: walking up and down our streets all the time, even
Speaker 1: late at night, but we don't have any kids around,
Speaker 1: and if we did, it would have been strange to
Speaker 1: see one out this late. My dog lunged at the
Speaker 1: figure and I had to hold tight to keep him
Speaker 1: from breaking loose. I realized just how angry the other
Speaker 1: dogs in the neighborhood were acting at this point. They
Speaker 1: were all leaping at their fences or pulling at their
Speaker 1: chains and snarling and barking like they wanted to fight.
Speaker 1: I had grabbed my spotlight so I could see everything
Speaker 1: clearly as this figure came within six feet of me.
Speaker 1: It wasn't paying me any mind as it walked, but
Speaker 1: I got a good view of it. This was no child.
Speaker 1: This was a sisquatch. It may have been a small one,
Speaker 1: but fear well up inside me as I thought to myself,
Speaker 1: there's probably bigger ones nearby. Well, it ignored me, and
Speaker 1: I was awkwardly trying to ignore it. As it passed,
Speaker 1: I couldn't stop myself from turning around to get one
Speaker 1: more look at it, though, and to my utter shock
Speaker 1: and amazement, it slowly disappeared right in front of me.
Speaker 1: It was like it dissolved. There was no way it
Speaker 1: didn't see me, but it acted like I was never there.
Speaker 1: I didn't smell anything, and it never made any noise.
Speaker 1: All I really want to know now is if anyone
Speaker 1: else has a story of a bigfoot disappearing right in
Speaker 1: front of them, I'd like to know that I'm not
Speaker 1: the only one. I live by State Park in eastern Illinois.
Speaker 1: One day I decided to saddle up my old donkey
Speaker 1: and take a nice long ride along some of the
Speaker 1: many trails the park has to offer. Darling is a
Speaker 1: pretty good old girl. Nothing really bothers her except water.
Speaker 1: I can urge her through it, but she lets me
Speaker 1: know that she ain't happy about it. We were heading
Speaker 1: down the trail and I was enjoying the changing colors
Speaker 1: of the leaves. Fall was extra pretty that year. It
Speaker 1: felt like the trees had an extra batch of leaves,
Speaker 1: and every one of them was a different shade of red, brown, green,
Speaker 1: or yellow. I was paying more attention to the brilliant
Speaker 1: colors than I was to Darling when she started acting skittish.
Speaker 1: I don't know what was making her so jumpy. She
Speaker 1: never acted that way before. But I got her attention
Speaker 1: and we headed on down the trail. We hadn't gone
Speaker 1: much further when I heard something coming up behind us
Speaker 1: through the mass of fallen leaves. I twisted around to
Speaker 1: see what it was, but there was nothing there. It
Speaker 1: gave me an uneasy feeling, so I urged the old
Speaker 1: girl into a trot. Whatever was back there picked up
Speaker 1: its pace to match ours, so I stopped her, and
Speaker 1: whatever was back there stopped too, and then started again
Speaker 1: as soon as we did. Well. This went on for
Speaker 1: a quarter of a mile until I finally stopped and dismounted.
Speaker 1: Darling had her ears pointed straight forward and was snorting
Speaker 1: like she wasn't happy. Well, this prompted me to look
Speaker 1: a little harder at our surroundings. That's when I saw it.
Speaker 1: Lurking behind a tree was a really big brown something
Speaker 1: that kept poking its head out for a quick glance
Speaker 1: at us before pulling back behind the tree. On this
Speaker 1: part of Illinois, we don't have anything like bears. I've
Speaker 1: seen a couple of mountain lions, but this was way
Speaker 1: bigger than that. I guess he got tired of playing
Speaker 1: peekaboo with me, because he finally walked out into the open.
Speaker 1: He was about the biggest animal I had ever seen
Speaker 1: in my life. He was eight feet tall, he had
Speaker 1: no neck, and his shoulders were twice as broad as
Speaker 1: a football player's. His arms were long, going all the
Speaker 1: way down to his knees. Well, he just stood there,
Speaker 1: sort of swaying back and forth while I stood there
Speaker 1: staring at him, until I got nervous and moved up
Speaker 1: toward Darling's head. I didn't know what to do, and
Speaker 1: I know Darling didn't know, So I put my foot
Speaker 1: in the stirrup and I climbed back up on her,
Speaker 1: with every intention of beating a hasty retreat. Before I
Speaker 1: queued Darling to run, though, this thing caught my eye
Speaker 1: with a wave of its hand. It looked like it
Speaker 1: was motioning for me to come over to it. Well,
Speaker 1: I'm sorry, but I wasn't about to walk toward that thing.
Speaker 1: And then it started walking toward me and grunting. I
Speaker 1: didn't wait for it to get to us. I kicked
Speaker 1: Darling into a dead run. I thought we were going
Speaker 1: at a pretty good pace until I looked back and
Speaker 1: I saw that this bigfoot thing wasn't forty feet behind us.
Speaker 1: We were coming up on a fork in the trail, so,
Speaker 1: thinking quickly, I turned Darling down the side trail, and
Speaker 1: I was hoping we might throw it off a bit
Speaker 1: at the very least game and some ground. It wasn't
Speaker 1: until it was too late to take the first path
Speaker 1: that I remembered that this one was going to lead
Speaker 1: us straight to a stream. With Darling's aversion to water,
Speaker 1: I figured this wasn't going to be good, but it
Speaker 1: was too late to turn back now. Taking that quick
Speaker 1: turn did seem to cross our pursuer up a bit.
Speaker 1: We gained another ten feet on him. Darling was moving
Speaker 1: faster now than I'd ever known her too, but that
Speaker 1: stream was coming up fast. In Visions of her slamming
Speaker 1: on her brakes and sending me over her head danced
Speaker 1: through my mind. As I spurred her on to an
Speaker 1: even faster pace. I thought, maybe if we approached the
Speaker 1: water fast enough, she'd get through it without too much trouble.
Speaker 1: But I could see the stream coming up and hear
Speaker 1: the bigfoot closing in at the same time, and my
Speaker 1: heart was racing with fear and anticipation of the worst.
Speaker 1: We hit the water, and Darling ran through it like
Speaker 1: she was half fish. The water turned white and sparkled
Speaker 1: in the sunlight under her hoofs, and she acted like
Speaker 1: it was nothing. As we reached the opposite bank, I
Speaker 1: looked back, and the Bigfoot was gone. Maybe all that
Speaker 1: water splashing startled him, Maybe he just gave up. I
Speaker 1: don't know. What I do know is that I owe
Speaker 1: that Bigfoot a debt of gratitude because after that day,
Speaker 1: Darling never showed any fear of water again. Thanks for
Speaker 1: what you do. It's a true joy to listen to
Speaker 1: your shows. And as to your accent, I grew up
Speaker 1: in a town called Cutting Shoot, and I now live
Speaker 1: in a place called Nameless, Texas. It's a real place.
Speaker 1: Look it up. So I don't think you have an accent.
Speaker 1: Thanks brother. I appreciate that I understand me perfectly well,
Speaker 1: so I don't know why anybody else would have any
Speaker 1: trouble understanding me. Let's get to his story. They'd been
Speaker 1: dating for a couple of months now. The discussion of
Speaker 1: overnight backpacking had come up several times over the weeks,
Speaker 1: and now that the weather was more agreeable, they packed
Speaker 1: their gear and headed north from Houston to the Sam
Speaker 1: Houston National Forest, just outside of Huntsville. Neither of them
Speaker 1: had been there before, but the Internet was loaded with
Speaker 1: the maps and camping suggestions, and the printer was loaded
Speaker 1: with ink. They easily found the parking area and the
Speaker 1: adjacent trailhead. It was lob lolly looped seventeen miles, read
Speaker 1: the sign in a familiar brown and yellow pattern common
Speaker 1: to all the national parks. Great, they thought, eight miles in,
Speaker 1: we'll camp eight miles out. It's just the right length
Speaker 1: without exhausting ourselves. Backpacks were donned and adjusted for the
Speaker 1: perfect fit trekking poles were lengthened, and bandannas were made
Speaker 1: into dew rags. Let's do this, they said to one another,
Speaker 1: and down the trail they marched. He led the way,
Speaker 1: with her close behind. They were young and in good shape,
Speaker 1: and both of them had some steam to blow off
Speaker 1: after a stressful week at their respective downtown Houston corporate jobs.
Speaker 1: The pace was quick, and of course, here were two
Speaker 1: twenty somethings still getting to know one another and hence
Speaker 1: eager to impress the other with their physical prowess. Six
Speaker 1: miles into the trek, they came upon a large curve
Speaker 1: to the right, with thick undergrowth on the inside of
Speaker 1: the curve and a more open stand of pines on
Speaker 1: the outside, with most of the trees between the size
Speaker 1: of the person's arm and thigh suddenly she stopped and
Speaker 1: got his attention to do the same. Did you hear that?
Speaker 1: She said, hear what? He replied, Ah, it's nothing, she said,
Speaker 1: That's just it. It's nothing. No birds, no bugs, not
Speaker 1: even gnats. They've all disappeared. And what does that smell?
Speaker 1: He did indeed smell something, but he couldn't quite put
Speaker 1: his finger on it. It kind of reminded him of
Speaker 1: a roadkill left to bacon the Texas sun. But it
Speaker 1: was faint, like an odor that could only be detected
Speaker 1: when the wind was right. That's to be expected in
Speaker 1: the woods, he thought. But the sudden silence, now that
Speaker 1: was weird. And then it happened, and he saw it
Speaker 1: before he heard it. Out of his peripheral vision. To
Speaker 1: his right, from the undergrowth in the curve, a rock
Speaker 1: flew in a lazy arc and landed with a soft
Speaker 1: thud on the pine nettle covering the ground at his feet.
Speaker 1: It was about the size of a golf ball, and
Speaker 1: it was smooth, like a river rock worn by eons
Speaker 1: of water. And she saw it too, What the hell?
Speaker 1: And the rest of the world was swallowed by their
Speaker 1: rapid succession of events that unfolded in front of her
Speaker 1: Her hiking companion had bent down and picked up a
Speaker 1: dead pine sapling about the size and length of a
Speaker 1: base ball bat. She thought he was going to make
Speaker 1: some macho threat to an unseen rock thrower, but she
Speaker 1: couldn't have been more wrong. She was left speechless by
Speaker 1: what transpired next. He had turned to face the inside
Speaker 1: of the curve in the approximate location from where the
Speaker 1: rock had been thrown. He dropped into what could only
Speaker 1: be described as a batting dance, and he called out,
Speaker 1: it's the top of the nine. With both teams playing
Speaker 1: mostly defensive game, the pennant is riding on this matchup.
Speaker 1: She recognized his weak attempt at sounding like a Howard
Speaker 1: co Sell or a hairy Carey. She hated baseball. She
Speaker 1: was forced to suffer through hours and hours of it
Speaker 1: while sitting with her father when she was a little girl.
Speaker 1: Her father was a wonderful man, and baseball was his
Speaker 1: one fault. A second rock came from the brush, and
Speaker 1: the same softball like arc as the first. Had to
Speaker 1: adjustice position a couple of feet to get lined up
Speaker 1: with the rock, but then made solid contact with the
Speaker 1: projectile and sent it back into the bushes. Off to
Speaker 1: his left base. Hit for the batter, but the runner
Speaker 1: will be held up at second. She heard it in
Speaker 1: the same Howard co cell voice. Then he took the
Speaker 1: batter stance again, and this time the rock was right
Speaker 1: on target in front of him, and he swung and
Speaker 1: he missed. Swinging a miss strike one, said Harry. The
Speaker 1: next pitch went foul. Right strike two, Harry called out.
Speaker 1: Up to this point, she wasn't so much frightened as
Speaker 1: she was dumbfounded. No one would believe this. You can't
Speaker 1: make this crap up. And then she heard two things,
Speaker 1: one curious and one terrifying. She could have sworn she
Speaker 1: heard what sounded like giggling and growling in Japanese coming
Speaker 1: from the undergrowth. Just as she was processing this, aloud
Speaker 1: and commanding voice inside her head said leave now. She
Speaker 1: peed in her hiking shorts and started to quiver. She
Speaker 1: looked at her partner and his response was completely different.
Speaker 1: He had dropped the stick and held both hands up
Speaker 1: in front of him as if he was being held
Speaker 1: at gunpoint. Hey, hey, we meant no harm, he said.
Speaker 1: No need to be ugly about this. We're gonna go
Speaker 1: camp A couple of miles up the trail, drop by
Speaker 1: if you want to, And then, as if a switch
Speaker 1: had been thrown, the birds started chirping, and a murder
Speaker 1: of crows was making an awful racket in the trees
Speaker 1: above them, and the gnats were once again finding annoying
Speaker 1: ways to get into their noses. He turned and looked
Speaker 1: at her, and then, without a word, proceeded up the trail.
Speaker 1: For the next half hour, they said nothing to one another,
Speaker 1: and the only sound from them was the muffled thump
Speaker 1: of hiking boots on the pine needles and the rhythmic
Speaker 1: click of trekking poles. The pea had almost completely dried
Speaker 1: on her shorts when she finally spoke, Look, I need
Speaker 1: you to stop and explain to me exactly what happened
Speaker 1: back there. Are we in danger? If that was what
Speaker 1: I think it was. Are they gonna kill us? I
Speaker 1: feel like running all the way back to the car.
Speaker 1: He turned and said, as smoothly as he could. You
Speaker 1: know how I like to listen to that guy Steve
Speaker 1: from up in Canada on YouTube and that fellow from
Speaker 1: Mississippi who tells all those stories. If you hear enough
Speaker 1: of those encounters, you'll notice a pattern. I'd never thought
Speaker 1: i'd see a sasquatch, much less actually have an encounter.
Speaker 1: Are we in danger? I seriously doubt it, and think
Speaker 1: about it. They're the top tier predators, and if they
Speaker 1: wanted us dead, you'd never see them coming. The whole
Speaker 1: time we've been together. You thought I was enough for
Speaker 1: believing in this stuff, haven't you? What do you think now? Yeah?
Speaker 1: But baseball? She said lightly. That was spontaneous, and I'm
Speaker 1: not sure why I did that. He once again started
Speaker 1: up the trail over his shoulder. He said to her,
Speaker 1: In all likelihood, they will pay us a visit tonight.
Speaker 1: We should probably leave the pop tarts out for them.
Speaker 1: I hope they like brown sugar cinnamon. November sixteen, twenty twelve,
Speaker 1: I was in Lafayette County, Mississippi, raccoon hunting with my
Speaker 1: dad on public land. It was a good spot with
Speaker 1: a lot of logging roads, fire lanes in areas, a
Speaker 1: big timber that we'd been hunting for the ten years prior.
Speaker 1: It was especially good for my dad since he'd had
Speaker 1: a stroke years before and the old logging roads allowed
Speaker 1: him away to get to where the dog had The
Speaker 1: raccoons treed if it weren't too deep in the woods.
Speaker 1: This particular night, we had turned our dog Nikki loose twice,
Speaker 1: and she'd treed raccoons both times. We were proud of
Speaker 1: that dog. It was only about ten thirty, and my dad,
Speaker 1: full of excitement and unwilling to call it a night,
Speaker 1: said let's turn her loose one more time. We pulled
Speaker 1: over to a spot we'd never stopped at before, and
Speaker 1: just as I opened the truck door, a big old
Speaker 1: hoota all cut loose. We sat there and listened for
Speaker 1: a minute before I got Nicki out on a leash.
Speaker 1: I walked her about thirty yards down the woods in
Speaker 1: the direction I wanted her to hunt, and then I
Speaker 1: turned her loose. She tried to ten or fifteen yards
Speaker 1: in front of me and stopped and perked her ears up.
Speaker 1: Three codies started barking somewhere close by to our left,
Speaker 1: and two more answered to our right. I turned my
Speaker 1: light down low, knowing Nicki normally waited for the codies
Speaker 1: to settle down before taking off, and that's when it
Speaker 1: began to howl. It was like flipping a switch. The
Speaker 1: second it started howling, the code went dead silent. I
Speaker 1: turned my light off. At this point, I couldn't identify
Speaker 1: what was making the sound, but I knew I didn't
Speaker 1: want to draw its attention. I'm guessing it, whatever it was,
Speaker 1: was less than one hundred yards away. It howled a
Speaker 1: total of three times, each one so loud I can't
Speaker 1: even begin to describe it. When it finally stopped, I
Speaker 1: realized the entire woods were completely silent. There were no animals,
Speaker 1: no frogs, no crickets, no night birds, nothing but silence.
Speaker 1: I turned my light back on and saw Nicki laying
Speaker 1: flat on the ground with her head between her front legs.
Speaker 1: She was shaking uncontrollably. Come here, Nicki, I called softly.
Speaker 1: She gave me a pitiful look and then used her
Speaker 1: front legs to drag herself over to me, like her
Speaker 1: back legs were paralyzed. She was still trembling out of
Speaker 1: control when I put her back on the leash. I
Speaker 1: turned my light back up on bright, and we started
Speaker 1: walking back to the truck. And that's when I heard
Speaker 1: what sounded like tree limbs popping and shaking. It was
Speaker 1: a long thirty yards getting back out of the woods.
Speaker 1: What in the world was that, Dad asked when we
Speaker 1: made it back I don't know, I answered, but according
Speaker 1: to Nicky, it's time to go. Later, I found a
Speaker 1: recording of the Ohio Howel on YouTube and played it
Speaker 1: for my dad. He got all excited, thinking I'd recorded
Speaker 1: what we heard that night. I told him this was
Speaker 1: a different recording, but we both agreed it was identical
Speaker 1: to the sound we heard that night.