Speaker 1: In nineteen ninety seven, when I was ten years old,
Speaker 1: I was spending the summer with my grandmother. One day,
Speaker 1: she told me that we were going to Grandpa's house
Speaker 1: for lunch in Geneva, a small town in Seminole County, Florida,
Speaker 1: about a fifteen minute car ride away. During the car ride,
Speaker 1: my grandmother and I were listening to the radio. There
Speaker 1: was a bright, hot and humid, sunny Florida day, about
Speaker 1: close to eleven AM, and I was looking out my
Speaker 1: window when all of a sudden, my grandmother slammed on
Speaker 1: her brakes and her giant osmobile, screeching the tires. Thankfully
Speaker 1: no one was behind us. My head shot forward to
Speaker 1: see why she was breaking so fast and driving like
Speaker 1: a mad woman. There it was. There was this thing,
Speaker 1: this creature on two legs. It looked like an orangutan
Speaker 1: with long orange hair. We were fifteen feet away from it.
Speaker 1: It was about seven feet tall, walking upright, and it
Speaker 1: stopped in the middle of the road and stared at
Speaker 1: us for a few seconds. Well. I turned to my
Speaker 1: grandmother and she turned and looked right at me, and
Speaker 1: we were both in total disbelief. Our mouths were wide
Speaker 1: open and shot We turned back to the creature, and
Speaker 1: it showed us its teeth, sort of like how a
Speaker 1: chimp shows its teeth, and then it continued on its way.
Speaker 1: My grandpa's house was only maybe a thousand feet away.
Speaker 1: My grandmother told my grandpa and aunt what we had seen.
Speaker 1: Grandpa said it was the Old Red started laughing. He
Speaker 1: was an outdoorsman. He used to live in old campers.
Speaker 1: Sometimes he'd even sleep outside. Now remembering having a pet deer.
Speaker 1: He had squirrels and raccoons and possums, and we would
Speaker 1: talk about his pet monkey called Old Red. I never
Speaker 1: believed him about Old Red because I never saw it myself.
Speaker 1: At that time. The deer and the raccoons would come
Speaker 1: inside his trailer. He would feed them all, and I
Speaker 1: would sit there just watching him. The nights I stayed
Speaker 1: with my grandpa, he would try to get Old Red
Speaker 1: to come out so I could sing. He'd call out, Red, Red, Red,
Speaker 1: come on out. At the time, I was a quiet kid,
Speaker 1: and I never asked him who Old Red was. Before
Speaker 1: my sighting, I thought Old Red was a squirrel. Grandpa
Speaker 1: was very protective of his wildlife. He said, the deer
Speaker 1: and the squirrels and Old Red were his, and nobody
Speaker 1: better hurt him or else. He wouldn't even let me
Speaker 1: touch the deer of the squirrels. He made me sit
Speaker 1: there and just watch. And my grandpa was a quiet man,
Speaker 1: and he kept to himself, and he had a few
Speaker 1: close friends. But that day he laughed his butt off.
Speaker 1: You believe me now, he said, laughing and dancing in circles.
Speaker 1: My grandparents are both gone now, but I still have
Speaker 1: so many questions. Did Old Red come inside and sit
Speaker 1: with my grandfather and eat? What kind of food did
Speaker 1: he like? How long did it take him to befriend
Speaker 1: to this animal? I found one picture on the internet
Speaker 1: that looks like Old Red. There's an old species of
Speaker 1: primate that exists around here in Florida. You can even
Speaker 1: visit this creature at the Wilkiva Spring State Park. Based
Speaker 1: on that, I think two scenarios could coexist. One that
Speaker 1: somebody let the orangutang like Bigfoot loose and it was
Speaker 1: somebody's pet at some point, or that there are wild
Speaker 1: animals that look like orangutang's that live in the swamps
Speaker 1: out here on the Saint John's River,