Speaker 1: I have never shared my story except with my father,
Speaker 1: but I like to listen to and believe the stories
Speaker 1: from other hunters. They lived them, and who am I
Speaker 1: to tell them what they saw. It doesn't take much
Speaker 1: imagination for me to feel like I'm right there with
Speaker 1: the person in your stories at the time of their encounters.
Speaker 1: My name is Bob and I'm seventy nine years old.
Speaker 1: I stopped hunting when I was fifty nine. I hated
Speaker 1: giving up hunting, but I had sport knees and it
Speaker 1: was getting too hard to walk in the forest and
Speaker 1: the mountains. I sure miss the elk meat and the venison.
Speaker 1: I know that Bigfoot has been here forever. I started
Speaker 1: to read about them when I was twelve. There wasn't
Speaker 1: much to read about them in those days, but every
Speaker 1: once in a while you would hear a strange story
Speaker 1: that a hunter or a camper had seen one or
Speaker 1: something they couldn't explain, or experience being harassed by something
Speaker 1: they never saw. They just heard it or smelled it,
Speaker 1: but no one talked about it for fear of being crazy,
Speaker 1: because no one believed that Bigfoot existed. I also never
Speaker 1: spoke to any of my friends about seeing one. I
Speaker 1: don't believe they would have believed me anyway. I saw
Speaker 1: the only one I've ever seen when I was fifteen
Speaker 1: years old. It was October nineteen fifty six and I
Speaker 1: was elking deer hunting on Canfield Mountain just outside of Cordelane, Idaho.
Speaker 1: I lived just ten miles from Canfill Mountain, so after
Speaker 1: school I used to drive my old car up to
Speaker 1: Canfield and find an old logging road and walk it
Speaker 1: three steps at a time until it got dark. The
Speaker 1: huge thing, at least eight foot tall and I would
Speaker 1: guess five to six hundred pounds, stepped out of the
Speaker 1: trees onto the old logging road about twenty five yards
Speaker 1: in front of me. It was getting dark and I
Speaker 1: was on my way back to the car. I only
Speaker 1: saw it for maybe twenty seconds before it disappeared back
Speaker 1: into the brush in the trees. I don't remember hearing
Speaker 1: any bushes breaking or other noise as it disappeared. I
Speaker 1: was probably too shocked to notice. I did see that
Speaker 1: it was a brownish and black color. I don't recall
Speaker 1: any odor. Its face was lighter and hairless. I don't
Speaker 1: recall the facial features either. It scared the crap out
Speaker 1: of me. I knew immediately I wasn't looking at a bear.
Speaker 1: I had my three hundred h and h MAG with me,
Speaker 1: but I never thought to shoot it. Hell, I couldn't
Speaker 1: even move. My father was an avid hunter. He started
Speaker 1: me hunting with him when I was ten. He taught
Speaker 1: me that you only shoot or hunt what you're gonna eat.
Speaker 1: He said he saw one in the nineteen fifties, seventy
Speaker 1: yards away while hunting on Brown Creek's saddle. He said
Speaker 1: it was a good thing I didn't shoot it, because
Speaker 1: I probably would have just pissed it off and it
Speaker 1: would have killed me. I never stopped hunting on Canfield Mountain,
Speaker 1: and I was back just a week later hunting there.
Speaker 1: I figured I would probably never see another bigfoot again,
Speaker 1: but I watched out for one every time I went
Speaker 1: into the woods. I can recall the feeling I was
Speaker 1: being watched in other parts of northern Idaho when I
Speaker 1: was hunting. I listened to your show all the time.
Speaker 1: Thank you, Bob. I appreciate that it's a great show,
Speaker 1: very interesting and good entertainment. I just wanted to tell
Speaker 1: my story, and you were right. The bigfoot story and
Speaker 1: what they are is known by many, but for some reason,
Speaker 1: no one is talking about it, but the honest people
Speaker 1: who have seen one. There's so many people who are
Speaker 1: phonies who want to join their sights and send money,
Speaker 1: so many that know absolutely nothing about hunting or animals.
Speaker 1: They lie and they tear down good, honest people who
Speaker 1: have had encounters with bigfoot. The old platitude, no evidence,
Speaker 1: no body, no DNA, phony pictures and so forth, and
Speaker 1: so many shows trying to make money off of bigfoot
Speaker 1: with their phony shows about hunting bigfoot. I wish they
Speaker 1: would see one and it would chase them.
Speaker 2: I hope they have a lot of toilet paper with
Speaker 2: them so they can clean up. Why don't these brave
Speaker 2: hunters hunt in places that are active for bigfoot? Are
Speaker 2: they afraid they might find one or be found by one?
Speaker 3: In Durant, Oklahoma, around nineteen eighty six or eighty seven,
Speaker 3: I was six or seven years old. My mother and
Speaker 3: I lived in an old farmhouse on the outskirts of town.
Speaker 3: To the left of the house was a large field,
Speaker 3: and at the back of the field there was a creek,
Speaker 3: and the name of the creek was mineral by you.
Speaker 3: It was summertime and my best friend and I decided
Speaker 3: to take a single shot twenty two out to the
Speaker 3: field to see if we could shoot some armadillos. It
Speaker 3: was just about thirty minutes past dark. The only form
Speaker 3: of light we had was one of those old big
Speaker 3: square flashlights with the batteries, and they were almost dead,
Speaker 3: so it was very poor light. We crossed the barber
Speaker 3: our fence that separated our house from the field and
Speaker 3: started walking towards the creek, which was about five to
Speaker 3: seven hundred yards away from the house. When we had
Speaker 3: traveled two hundred yards from the house, we noticed a
Speaker 3: figure walking into the field from our left, maybe fifty
Speaker 3: yards away, assuming it was a cow, but we weren't
Speaker 3: for sure. We continued forward until we were much closer,
Speaker 3: maybe within ten or fifteen feet ten or fifteen feet
Speaker 3: of the animal. Really, it was standing upright with its
Speaker 3: right arm facing us. As we got closer, it turned
Speaker 3: and looked at us, and that's when we could tell
Speaker 3: that we were not for sure exactly what this thing was.
Speaker 3: It had gray hair and modeling clay grayish skin on
Speaker 3: its face, and the hair was not extremely thick. You
Speaker 3: could see the skin in several different spots. It was
Speaker 3: between six and seven feet tall, and was definitely not
Speaker 3: a man. By this time, we were close enough to
Speaker 3: almost touch it. This is blowing me away. We got
Speaker 3: a very good look at its face. It looked like
Speaker 3: its lips had vertical creases towards the edges. Its lips
Speaker 3: were fairly thin and just slightly darker than the skin
Speaker 3: on its face. It had large, square shaped teeth with
Speaker 3: several missing from what I could see, and it had
Speaker 3: large brown eyes. It had the strangest expression on its
Speaker 3: face that was very hard to explain. It was almost
Speaker 3: amused and surprised at the same time. It looked at
Speaker 3: us and then turned and walked maybe six feet away,
Speaker 3: and then it stopped again. When it turned, you could
Speaker 3: see that it had red clays stuck throughout its hair,
Speaker 3: like it had been in the creek for some reason.
Speaker 3: We were not afraid of it at this time, so
Speaker 3: we followed. The creature would let us get within six
Speaker 3: or seven feet, and it would walk further towards the
Speaker 3: creek and then stopped again. It did this several times,
Speaker 3: with it stopping and waiting for us to get closer,
Speaker 3: and then moving on and then stopping again, until we
Speaker 3: were maybe one hundred and fifty yards from the creek
Speaker 3: and the tree line. Whenever the creature entered the tree line,
Speaker 3: we had an ominous feeling and decided not to follow
Speaker 3: it into the tree line, so we went home. My
Speaker 3: mother was asleep when we got home, so we just
Speaker 3: didn't tell anyone about it. Not long after this incident,
Speaker 3: we had a dog go missing and my mother said
Speaker 3: someone was peeking in the bathroom window while she was
Speaker 3: in the tub. We called the police, but they couldn't
Speaker 3: find anyone. A couple of years later, my cousin and
Speaker 3: I were at the same creek, which was about a
Speaker 3: half a mile from my home. We found several large,
Speaker 3: bare footprints and a handprint in the bank of the creek,
Speaker 3: and you could see where this thing had climbed about
Speaker 3: eight foot off the bank and out of the creek. Charles,
Speaker 3: I am just blown away that you boys walked right
Speaker 3: up to this thing and it didn't do anything. It
Speaker 3: just kept walking, just keeping its distance six or seven
Speaker 3: feet away. That is a phenomenal. It's a great encounter story.
Speaker 3: I'm sure you will never forget it. I'm just at
Speaker 3: a loss for words because I've read so many of
Speaker 3: these and this is one of the few that I've
Speaker 3: seen where boys actually followed this thing into the woods
Speaker 3: that close. It's just crazy, all right, Charles, it's a
Speaker 3: great story. Thank you so much for sending it in.
Speaker 1: This is an email I got from a gentleman in Alaska.
Speaker 1: This is great. Oh my gosh, this is fantastic. Here's
Speaker 1: what he writes. I'm thirty one and was born and
Speaker 1: raised in Alaska. I've spent much of my life in
Speaker 1: the wilderness. I grew up north of Fairbanks as an adult,
Speaker 1: and I also spent a lot of time hunting and
Speaker 1: trapping near my mom's home village on the cusca Quinn River.
Speaker 1: Before writing this email, I was asked by a family
Speaker 1: member to keep the name of the village anonymous. But
Speaker 1: it is a large Upik village on the main cusca
Speaker 1: Quinn River between Tululuksak and McGrath. I'll just leave it
Speaker 1: at that. There are several areas in Alaska that are
Speaker 1: known to be Bigfoot hotspots. Some of these areas have
Speaker 1: a bit of a disturbing history, places like Port Chatham,
Speaker 1: which you probably already know about, but for those listening
Speaker 1: who don't know, it was a small fishing community abandoned
Speaker 1: over sixty years ago when the local people suddenly fled
Speaker 1: the town. The town had numerous strange and unsolved disappearances.
Speaker 1: There are old stories about people finding human bodies ripped
Speaker 1: apart limb by limb in the woods, along with various
Speaker 1: Bigfoot sightings. There's another area along the Wrangele Mountains where
Speaker 1: locals say there are large, hairy, human like beasts that
Speaker 1: are aggressive and don't like people. There are long rows
Speaker 1: of hills behind my mom's home village that seem to
Speaker 1: be one of those hotspots for Bigfoot activity.
Speaker 3: There.
Speaker 1: The Yupik natives referred to the Bigfoot as hairy Man.
Speaker 1: One Native elder and a longtime family friend told me
Speaker 1: back when he was young, he and his dad were
Speaker 1: traveling by dog team while out getting firewood. Daylight doesn't
Speaker 1: last very long in Alaska during the winter, and it
Speaker 1: was well past dark by the time they were heading home.
Speaker 1: He was riding in the sled and his dad was
Speaker 1: standing behind him on the runners controlling the dog team.
Speaker 1: The dog suddenly stopped in the middle of the trail
Speaker 1: and became spoofed. They were whimpering and trying to turn around.
Speaker 1: The fear eventually subsided and they were able to continue
Speaker 1: on home. The elder telling me this story said that
Speaker 1: back when they used to regularly travel by dog sled,
Speaker 1: it was known to be a telltale sign that a
Speaker 1: bigfoot was nearby when the dogs would stop and become spooked.
Speaker 1: When sensing wild animals, the dog would become alert and
Speaker 1: even aggressive, ready to fight, but there was a specific
Speaker 1: type of freaked out that would overtake them when picking
Speaker 1: up the smell of a bigfoot. Here are a couple
Speaker 1: of stories that happened to my grandfather on my mother's
Speaker 1: side and my two uncles. Both of these stories were
Speaker 1: told to me firsthand by my uncles, and then lastly,
Speaker 1: I have a story of my own I would like
Speaker 1: to share at the end. Back in the nineteen sixties,
Speaker 1: my grandpa had a fish camp at the base of
Speaker 1: the hills, a few miles up the river from the village.
Speaker 1: Both my grandpa and my uncle Daniel saw strange large
Speaker 1: tracks near their fish camp. My uncle Daniel was just
Speaker 1: a kid, but he remembers it vividly. There was one
Speaker 1: day they also found long golden colored hair stuck in
Speaker 1: the wooden slats of the smokehouse wall. And several salmon
Speaker 1: strips had been carefully picked off the horizontal poles in
Speaker 1: the middle of the smokehouse. It's not uncommon for bears
Speaker 1: to get into people's smoke houses, but when it's a
Speaker 1: bear or any other wild animal, you'll know because of
Speaker 1: the mess and destruction they leave behind. This thing, whatever
Speaker 1: it was, was able to pry its arm in between
Speaker 1: the slatted wall and reach all the way to the
Speaker 1: middle of the smokehouse. It had to have a long
Speaker 1: reach and a human like hand. It also only picked
Speaker 1: the choice salmon strips and left the rest of them
Speaker 1: hanging on the pole untouched. It was smart enough to
Speaker 1: not only stealthily steal some fish, but also smart enough
Speaker 1: to know which fish strips were the best. The next
Speaker 1: story is the best testimony I know of someone who
Speaker 1: has seen bigfoot tracks and examined them up close. Years ago,
Speaker 1: my uncle Mark was hiking behind that same line of
Speaker 1: hills near the village. He came across an old fire
Speaker 1: line that local firefighters had bllen dozed in years ago
Speaker 1: to prevent wildfires from reaching the village. It was springtime
Speaker 1: and with the snow melting and the torn up tundra
Speaker 1: along the fire line, it was all muddy. My uncle
Speaker 1: Mark saw two very clear big footprints in the mud
Speaker 1: crossing the fire line. Each footprint was about eighteen inches
Speaker 1: long and five inches wide, and there was a six
Speaker 1: foot stride between the two prints. He said he could
Speaker 1: clearly see five toes, the shape of the foot, and
Speaker 1: the hill marked in the mud, just like a human foot,
Speaker 1: only much bigger. My uncle Mark has been tracking and
Speaker 1: trapping animals most of his life, and he knows what
Speaker 1: he's talking about when he says these were clearly giant
Speaker 1: human like footprints. Something walking barefooted with eighteen inch feet
Speaker 1: and six foot stride had recently crossed there. My uncle
Speaker 1: said he started having a very eerie feeling and he
Speaker 1: got out of there without looking from more tracks. And
Speaker 1: I have a story of my own i'd like to share.
Speaker 1: First off, I hate to disappoint the listeners, but I
Speaker 1: personally have never seen or heard a bigfoot, despite all
Speaker 1: the time I have spent in the Alaskan bush. However,
Speaker 1: I did have a strange experience camping alone one winter
Speaker 1: in December of twenty fifteen, I decided to hike to
Speaker 1: the end of a valley about two and a half
Speaker 1: miles inland from the Coscoquin River. I would like to
Speaker 1: give more information on exactly where this took place, but
Speaker 1: again I was asked to keep the location somewhat anonymous.
Speaker 1: I will say, however, that this valley that I was
Speaker 1: camping in was located between where my uncle Mark had
Speaker 1: seen the bigfoot tracks in the mud years ago and
Speaker 1: where my grandpa had his old fish camp. So I
Speaker 1: guess you could say it should be a good place
Speaker 1: to encounter a bigfoot. I had explored and camped around
Speaker 1: this valley before, but I had never gone all the
Speaker 1: way in. So early one December morning, I packed up
Speaker 1: some gear and I headed out. It was slow hiking
Speaker 1: because of the deep snow, and I didn't have snowshoes.
Speaker 1: It took me three hours of non stop hiking to
Speaker 1: reach the middle of this valley and find a place
Speaker 1: to set up camp. The weather was pretty clear, but
Speaker 1: I could see off in the distance a big low
Speaker 1: coming in, and I knew it was probably going to snow.
Speaker 1: This place was covered in rabbit tracks. My plan was
Speaker 1: to set a bunch of rabbit snares, spend the night,
Speaker 1: and then check the snares the next day before heading home.
Speaker 1: When I saw the big winter low moving in, I
Speaker 1: decided not to set any snares because they would probably
Speaker 1: just get buried in the snow. I was a little
Speaker 1: upset about that, but I decided it would still be
Speaker 1: a nice time camping out. At mid afternoon, I cut
Speaker 1: a big supply of firewood from some small standing dry
Speaker 1: wood nearby and got a huge fire going. I ate
Speaker 1: a snack and made some tea with a pot of
Speaker 1: melted snow over my big campfire. I hiked all over
Speaker 1: that area and I saw country that I had never
Speaker 1: seen before. By late afternoon, it was getting dark and
Speaker 1: I returned to my camp. For the next couple of hours.
Speaker 1: As it was getting completely dark, I pretty much just
Speaker 1: sat on a log, drinking tea and waiting for my
Speaker 1: fire to burn down into a bed of coals. There's
Speaker 1: an old trick when camping in the winter. Make a
Speaker 1: big fire, let it burn into a bunch of smoldering coals,
Speaker 1: and when it's melted through the ice and snow and
Speaker 1: into dry ground, mix it with the dirt and sleep
Speaker 1: over it. The coals under the dirt will summer all
Speaker 1: night and they'll keep you warm. As darkness fell and
Speaker 1: my fire was burning down I started getting this feeling
Speaker 1: that something was watching me. I know that sounds corny,
Speaker 1: and I brushed it off. It's just my imagination, but
Speaker 1: the got stronger. By ten o'clock, my campfire was nothing
Speaker 1: but a bed of smoldering coals. It had been dark
Speaker 1: for a long time now, and the only light was
Speaker 1: the faint illumination from the coals dancing on the trees
Speaker 1: around me. I got a sudden tingling sensation down the
Speaker 1: back of my neck and along my spine. I felt
Speaker 1: really uneasy, but I ignored it again. I told myself,
Speaker 1: I'm a tough, alasking boy born in Bread. In the wilderness,
Speaker 1: nothing scares me. But down in my gut I knew
Speaker 1: something was different. I've spent many nights alone in the
Speaker 1: wilderness and hadn't felt what I was feeling this time,
Speaker 1: so I couldn't help. But since that something was off,
Speaker 1: I mixed the coals in the dirt down in the
Speaker 1: hole where the fire had burned through the layers of
Speaker 1: snow and ice. Now, with the coals buried in the dirt,
Speaker 1: it was totally dark, and I clicked on my head lamp.
Speaker 1: I laid some spruce bows over the smoldering heap and
Speaker 1: put my sleeping bag on top of the spruce bows.
Speaker 1: I crawled in my sleeping bag, and I then pulled
Speaker 1: a small tarp over me to hold in the heat.
Speaker 1: It was nice and cozy, and I fell asleep really quick.
Speaker 1: I'm not sure how long I was asleep, but it
Speaker 1: was probably only about twenty minutes or so when I
Speaker 1: suddenly woke up and felt almost paralyzed with fear, similar
Speaker 1: to what my elder friend had told me happened to
Speaker 1: him and his dad on the dog sled trail. I
Speaker 1: forced myself to shake off the paralysis. I was about
Speaker 1: to go back to sleep, but immediately got this urgent
Speaker 1: feeling that I needed to get the heck out of
Speaker 1: there and quick. My whole body started tingling, and I
Speaker 1: felt like something didn't want me there. I could hear
Speaker 1: snowflakes gently hitting the tarp covering me, and I pulled
Speaker 1: the tarp off, clicked on my headlamp, and saw it
Speaker 1: was snowing hard and the wind was picking up. I
Speaker 1: didn't want to leave because my camp was nestled in
Speaker 1: the woods, and I knew walking back home now in
Speaker 1: the dark mint crossing areas of open tundra where it
Speaker 1: would be blowing snow, so I stayed put. Suddenly I
Speaker 1: felt again this unsettling feeling that I needed to leave
Speaker 1: right away. My heart started racing and my instincts were
Speaker 1: telling me to get out of there. I had packed
Speaker 1: light on this camping trip because I knew I was
Speaker 1: going to be hiking in a lot of snow, so
Speaker 1: the only gun I brought with me was a Ruger
Speaker 1: ten twenty two. Being armed with only a twenty two
Speaker 1: long rifle didn't give me a lot of confidence out
Speaker 1: there alone in the dark, feeling like something wanted to
Speaker 1: hurt me, even with a twenty five round magazine. I
Speaker 1: clicked my headlight back on and quickly packed everything up.
Speaker 1: I stuffed my sleeping bag in tarp in my pack,
Speaker 1: along with a few other things, without taking the time
Speaker 1: to brush the snow off. Within a couple of minutes,
Speaker 1: I was all packed up and I left immediately, heading
Speaker 1: for home. The wind had picked up even more, and
Speaker 1: when I got out of the tree line into the
Speaker 1: open tundra, it was basically a blizzard, just as I
Speaker 1: had expected. I tried to find my trail from earlier
Speaker 1: that day, but it was already covered up with snow.
Speaker 1: I felt stuck between a rock and a hard place.
Speaker 1: It was the middle of the night and blowing heavy snow,
Speaker 1: which made me worried that I was going to get
Speaker 1: lost trying to hike home, but I didn't want to
Speaker 1: return to camp either. I thought about heading back to
Speaker 1: my campsite, and even turned around to do so, but
Speaker 1: that horrible uneasy feeling hit me again as soon as
Speaker 1: I turned to walk back towards camp. For a moment,
Speaker 1: I wasn't sure what to do, but the uneasy feeling
Speaker 1: I had motivated me to push on through the snowy
Speaker 1: conditions and get home. I had an easier time seeing
Speaker 1: with my headlamp off, because with it on, the light
Speaker 1: reflected so much blowing snow all I could see was white.
Speaker 1: With it off, I could just barely make out where
Speaker 1: I was and where I needed to walk. Slowly and
Speaker 1: with lots of praying to Jesus, I made it across
Speaker 1: the long trek of open tundra and into the next
Speaker 1: tree line across from the valley. I knew from there
Speaker 1: I was close to the old woodcutting trail that led
Speaker 1: back to the village. Once I got back into the
Speaker 1: deep woods and sheltered from the weather, it was much
Speaker 1: easier to navigate. I eventually found the old woodcutting trail
Speaker 1: and followed it on the long height back to the village.
Speaker 1: When I finally saw the lights of the village off
Speaker 1: in the distance through the trees, I felt relieved. I
Speaker 1: was covered in snow and tuck her out when I
Speaker 1: made it back to my uncle's house. But I felt
Speaker 1: so grateful, and since I was back in cell range,
Speaker 1: I texted my mom that I loved her, even though
Speaker 1: it was really late. She texted me back. I was
Speaker 1: just glad I made it out of the situation, and
Speaker 1: I will never forget that unshakable, creepy chill I felt
Speaker 1: camping back in those woods in that valley. Since this experience,
Speaker 1: I've camped out alone several times in other places and
Speaker 1: haven't experienced any freaky feeling or felt disturbed at all,
Speaker 1: which helps confirm to me that there was something in
Speaker 1: that valley that one night giving me chills. I've never
Speaker 1: camped in that spot since then, and I have no
Speaker 1: desire to thank you for taking the time to read
Speaker 1: this email and for letting me share these stories with you.
Speaker 1: Signed Alex Alex's that's an awesome story. Man. You I'm
Speaker 1: assuming you're a native person up in Alaska. Obviously your
Speaker 1: family is there and they live in the villages up
Speaker 1: in the Great White North. And you know, I never
Speaker 1: get many stories out of Alaska at all. I think
Speaker 1: we've had maybe two or three in the last two years.
Speaker 1: And this is fascinating stuff because I don't know, I
Speaker 1: would think think that there would be a huge amount
Speaker 1: of bigfoot activity in Alaska. We get stories from Mississippi, Alabama,
Speaker 1: and we have you know, we have some pretty good
Speaker 1: wilderness down here, but the southeastern United States is pretty populated.
Speaker 1: The places where this man lives is I mean, the
Speaker 1: population is probably nothing compared to here, and the wilderness
Speaker 1: is so vast and expanse and full of woods and tundra.
Speaker 1: Like he was saying that, you would think that those
Speaker 1: things would live in there. But I really don't get
Speaker 1: many reports from Alaska. If anyone else has encounters from Alaska,
Speaker 1: I'd love to hear them. And I know there are
Speaker 1: stories from up there. I know there are, I just
Speaker 1: don't get many of them, and I'd love to read
Speaker 1: some more. Okay, I'm just babbling on let's let's let's
Speaker 1: move along here. Thanks Alex. I didn't have to edit
Speaker 1: a single word in this story, and I really appreciate
Speaker 1: the way you wrote it. Apparently you listened in school
Speaker 1: when you're in your English class and you did a
Speaker 1: great job. Brother, appreciate you.