Speaker 1: Here's another odd email that I received. The title The
Speaker 1: writer gives it as strangeness in the South forty Our
Speaker 1: farm operation was several years behind the times. Our neighbors
Speaker 1: planted straight rose using GPS and enjoyed the comfortable, controlled
Speaker 1: environment of a modern tractor. We didn't always have the
Speaker 1: luxury of a cab guided by dead reckoning. The tractors
Speaker 1: that did have cabs were nothing more than a noisy box.
Speaker 1: To shelter from wind and rain. I had learned to
Speaker 1: layer clothing to utilize my own body heat. I actually
Speaker 1: preferred to drive an open station unit anyway. There was
Speaker 1: something about the feel and smell of that evening. The
Speaker 1: chill fall air was pleasant against my face, and I
Speaker 1: could smell the rich earth as the dirt glided and
Speaker 1: rolled through the three autumn plow I was pulling. I
Speaker 1: was operating one of my favorite tractors. It was built
Speaker 1: several years before I was even born, but it stood
Speaker 1: up proudly to the duties ask of it. The old
Speaker 1: farm all imperred like the well tuned machine it was,
Speaker 1: and I admired the shine of the red hood before me.
Speaker 1: Hents of warmth came from the exhaust stack that lightly
Speaker 1: glowed from the work strain, and it was a wonderful
Speaker 1: evening to be farming. Dusk was starting to darken the
Speaker 1: pale clear sky. Now the colorful pastel canvas displayed shades
Speaker 1: of blue, green and hints of red. It wasn't quite
Speaker 1: dark enough to really need lights, but shadows were starting
Speaker 1: to creep from the timbered field edge. Darkness was beginning
Speaker 1: to claim the landscape. This particular area of the farm
Speaker 1: could give a particular sense of foreboding. Tonight revealed to
Speaker 1: be one of those nights of eeriness. I turned around,
Speaker 1: was coming up the evening row was shaded by the
Speaker 1: timber edge, and I noticed corn stalks were jamming up
Speaker 1: in the middle plowshar, which would need kicking out before
Speaker 1: it plugged tightly. I rolled to a stop and idle
Speaker 1: the tractor down. Sighing dejectedly, I stood up and stepped
Speaker 1: backwards down to the U shape of the drawbar, and
Speaker 1: I stepped further down until I was on the ground.
Speaker 1: I took out an ear plug and let my hearing
Speaker 1: adjust to the surroundings. And it was silent, just way
Speaker 1: too quiet. The only sound was the tractor engine idling.
Speaker 1: This was very peculiar. My eyes gazed slowly and carefully around,
Speaker 1: but I didn't realize anything extraordinary. I should be hearing crickets,
Speaker 1: maybe some woodland cadences, but I heard nothing. My footsteps
Speaker 1: loudly crunched as I maneuvered myself to clear the pl
Speaker 1: i'll shear. My body felt like electric adrenaline was quickly flowing,
Speaker 1: and this caused me to go on high alert. I
Speaker 1: couldn't shake the feeling as if I was being watched,
Speaker 1: and I quickly bent to my task. The sooner I
Speaker 1: could get back on the operator's seat, the sooner I
Speaker 1: could move on tink. I rocked. The size of my
Speaker 1: fist hit the shear to my right. I jumped, barely
Speaker 1: missing bumping my head against the plow frame. As I
Speaker 1: turned to scan the tree line and other large rock
Speaker 1: zipped inches past my head. There had been power propelling
Speaker 1: this object, and I heard a whiz sound as it passed,
Speaker 1: impacting the ground with a hard thump. Behind me, What
Speaker 1: the hell, I exclaimed, not finishing my thought, a very large, dark,
Speaker 1: indescribable shadow moved directly in front of me. Out of
Speaker 1: the darkness, a man shaped form materialized. This was nobody
Speaker 1: I reckon. Now, I judged the figure to stand at
Speaker 1: least eight feet tall. A very primitive looking being with
Speaker 1: menacing dark eyes stood just beyond my tractor. Dark hair
Speaker 1: covered a majority of the neked body. This was very
Speaker 1: decidedly a male, and I'm not going into detail on that.
Speaker 1: Just trust me. He was well muscled and presented an
Speaker 1: athletic body a wrestler or a football player would desire.
Speaker 1: We stood within a few short yards of each other.
Speaker 1: Now I was trembling with fear, but I stood my ground,
Speaker 1: trying to hide my terror. I could feel a penetrating
Speaker 1: gaze as if I was being measured and evaluated. Finally,
Speaker 1: the mighty beast nonchalantly turned and walked away, as if
Speaker 1: I were being dismissed. I heard a loud crunch behind me,
Speaker 1: and I quickly turned to see a large fleeting shadow
Speaker 1: disappear into the woods on my right. There had been
Speaker 1: more than one shaking. I collected myself and I climbed
Speaker 1: back in the operator's chair on wobbly legs, and I
Speaker 1: was done plowing for the evening. In fact, I picked
Speaker 1: up a higher gear to get back to the farmstead.
Speaker 1: I didn't tell anybody about my encounter when I got
Speaker 1: to the barn lot, who would believe me? Anyway, I
Speaker 1: had been there and was still processing the event. Had
Speaker 1: it been nothing but my imagination. The rock throne that
Speaker 1: hit my plowsher had left a chalk like mark, though
Speaker 1: I didn't get harassed about coming in. With darkness falling
Speaker 1: and the old, reliable im didn't have the best lighting,
Speaker 1: which made it hard to see at night, the bitter
Speaker 1: chill was overtaking any warmth found. As the sunlight had retreated,
Speaker 1: it was time to call it a day. Anyway, I
Speaker 1: did overhear a mumbled comment about pushing the old tractor
Speaker 1: too fast. My racing, bumping and creating a clatter was unusual.
Speaker 1: Vintage and antique equipment were treated with great respect on
Speaker 1: this farm. I had great trepidation realizing I had to
Speaker 1: go back and finish plowing the south forty. The duties
Speaker 1: still needed completion, regardless of my attitude. The next morning,
Speaker 1: I swallowed as much of my fear as I could
Speaker 1: and I headed back to the field. The morning went
Speaker 1: with no incident. It was slightly warmer as the sun
Speaker 1: rose higher in the pale sky. My eyes were constantly
Speaker 1: scanning all the scenery, and my head was constantly swiveling
Speaker 1: in every direction possible. I was seeking any abnormalities hiding
Speaker 1: in the darker forest, and it was difficult to stay
Speaker 1: focused on the task at hand. And the electric adrenaline
Speaker 1: feeling had returned, and I sensed I was being watched again.
Speaker 1: My nose soon alerted me to an offensive smell. It
Speaker 1: was stronger when I neared the tree line. The pungent
Speaker 1: odor of wet, rank, dirty talk, combined with the smell
Speaker 1: of a dead animal attacked my sinuses. No skunk would
Speaker 1: have smelled more pleasant. I had planned the plowing so
Speaker 1: that I had worked my way to the edge of
Speaker 1: the middle, and each pass drew me closer to the trees.
Speaker 1: I dreaded my actions after last night's bizarre occurrence. The
Speaker 1: tree line felt as if nothing was closing in, making
Speaker 1: it easier for the spectators to reach out and grab
Speaker 1: me off the operator's seat. My imagination had gone into overdrive. Fortunately,
Speaker 1: the cornstalks weren't hampering the plow, and I wasn't real
Speaker 1: comfortable with the idea of stopping to clean that plug
Speaker 1: away anyway. I felt vulnerable enough. Slowly moving in the open,
Speaker 1: and this was one of the very few times I
Speaker 1: would have rather dealt with the noisy confinement of a cow.
Speaker 1: There probably wouldn't have been any more safety in an
Speaker 1: enclosed area. That was nothing more than an idea, a
Speaker 1: false sense of security. Another rock zip passed my ear
Speaker 1: with fierce intensity. The projectile had been close enough that
Speaker 1: I felt it brush the side of my face. One
Speaker 1: inch closer and I would have been struck in the eye.
Speaker 1: My immediate reaction was to mash the clutch pedal, bringing
Speaker 1: the unit to an abrupt halt. Angry, I looked all
Speaker 1: around but observed nothing out of the ordinary. Now it
Speaker 1: wasn't the reaction of fear. I was mad. After calming myself,
Speaker 1: I assessed the situation with more reason. The only place
Speaker 1: of concealment the rock could have come was still a
Speaker 1: good distance. Whoever or whatever made that pitch had more
Speaker 1: power and accuracy than a major league pitcher. Intelligence to
Speaker 1: no vulnerable points was also demonstrated. This knowledge was rather disturbing.
Speaker 1: I heard the sound of another tractor in the distance.
Speaker 1: The volume was increasing, and I observed another plow unit
Speaker 1: head to the field. I sat back down and eased
Speaker 1: out the clutch, and the old ms started forward with
Speaker 1: a slight strain, and I had my doubts, but maybe
Speaker 1: I'd be safer with the increase in numbers. The plowing
Speaker 1: force soon increased again, and shortly there were three tractors
Speaker 1: and plows working in unison. A three bottom plow pulled
Speaker 1: by another M and an old John Deere fell into
Speaker 1: the work, and the old A's distinctive chugging sound overtook
Speaker 1: most of the created human noise pollution. The electric feeling
Speaker 1: of adrenaline faded in short time, and I started to
Speaker 1: get more comfortable now that there was companionship. It never
Speaker 1: occurred to me the unpleasant odor still lingered until I
Speaker 1: observe one of the other operators sniffing the air. He
Speaker 1: gave me a puzzled look and pinched his nose and shrugged,
Speaker 1: indicating he had found the smell strange and offensive. He
Speaker 1: asked me later when we stopped, if I had hit
Speaker 1: a scump. Okay, this next story, I'm gonna leave The
Speaker 1: writer doesn't say, but I'm gonna leave his name anonymous anyway,
Speaker 1: and he claims this story is true. This is a
Speaker 1: whopper right here. Again, all these stories that I read.
Speaker 1: I have no idea if they're true or not, but
Speaker 1: it's the way people send them to me. Well, I
Speaker 1: can't assume anything, so I don't. But I make a
Speaker 1: judgment on those just like you do. But I'm just
Speaker 1: not gonna say what I think. Does that makes sense?
Speaker 1: All I do is read them, and it's up to
Speaker 1: you to decide whether you believe him or not. Back
Speaker 1: in the nineteen seventies, when we heard whoops and knocking
Speaker 1: across the lake from the cab and my family owned,
Speaker 1: were told it was drunk hippies. It was, after all,
Speaker 1: northern California. In the nineteen seventies, we lived in the
Speaker 1: San Francisco Bay Area, but we were in the Sierras
Speaker 1: year round. My family owned a cabin at six thousand
Speaker 1: feet elevation in Pine Crest off of Highway one eight.
Speaker 1: We skiing the winter and enjoyed the lake in the spring.
Speaker 1: In summer, and we hunted deer and cut wood from
Speaker 1: fall back in the winter. After high school in nineteen
Speaker 1: eighty four, I moved up to our cabin to get
Speaker 1: away from the city. The work was seasonal and during
Speaker 1: the winter months we worked the local ski resort and
Speaker 1: then from May to October. We were wilding firefighters in
Speaker 1: the stan Stanislaw National Forest. I think that's how you
Speaker 1: pronounce that st. St A n I S l e
Speaker 1: U S Stanislaw National Forest, and he says it all
Speaker 1: this sounds great when you're nineteen. The first year with
Speaker 1: the US Forest Service Department of Agriculture was nineteen eighty five.
Speaker 1: I won the job of leeds sawyer on a thirty
Speaker 1: man team. We were a hand crew who went where
Speaker 1: bulldozers and trucks couldn't go, either by humping in or
Speaker 1: by helicopter. Usually, wilderness areas have never been logged, and
Speaker 1: therefore they have no fire roads. The area of my forest,
Speaker 1: the Stanislaw National Forest, occupies and contains the Immigrant wilderness
Speaker 1: where Ron Moorhead recorded this Sierra Sounds. The first of
Speaker 1: my three encounters occurred a few hours to the north
Speaker 1: of the Plumus National Forest, in which the town of
Speaker 1: Quincy is located. The main fire camp was at the
Speaker 1: local fairgrounds, where the different teams from around the country
Speaker 1: gathered to organize for the fight. Our team drew a
Speaker 1: hell attack mission several miles beyond any type of road
Speaker 1: into a old growth wilderness area and that meant we
Speaker 1: would be dropped in by helicopter. We split the team
Speaker 1: to fight two separate dry lightning strikes, each about an acre.
Speaker 1: It takes four trips to ferry the entire team. Being
Speaker 1: the lead sawyer, I was always in the first flight
Speaker 1: with one of my crew leaders to assess the approach
Speaker 1: and fell any trees that needed to create rotor clearance.
Speaker 1: Sometimes that meant repelling down and lowering my saw by rope.
Speaker 1: I fell two trees and the landing zone was open. John,
Speaker 1: my crew leader, the First Nation's meewalk tribe member, and
Speaker 1: I started to establish the approach by tying ribbons and
Speaker 1: limbing up trees so the remainder of the crew could
Speaker 1: easily follow. It was an easy fire. Half the crew
Speaker 1: had ours out and coal before total dark. The plan
Speaker 1: was to bivouac and keep an eye on the burn
Speaker 1: until the morning when the birds would pick us up.
Speaker 1: It was a beautiful area with old growth forest and
Speaker 1: barely any moonlight reaching through the forest floor. We each
Speaker 1: took out our space blankets and found a good tree
Speaker 1: to bed up against, and we were exhausted and we
Speaker 1: fell asleep in no time. It was three thirty am.
Speaker 1: When I suddenly awoke and found myself staring at the
Speaker 1: outline of an eight to nine foot tall creature covered
Speaker 1: in dark air. I could see it move as he
Speaker 1: was swaying. Years of hunting all over the Sierra Nevada
Speaker 1: Mountains told me that this was not a bear, and
Speaker 1: I started to reach for my chainsaw, but I couldn't move.
Speaker 1: It felt like I was being held on every part
Speaker 1: of my body. I was furious. I wanted to cut
Speaker 1: this thing off at the knees, and that's when he
Speaker 1: turned and looked at me with I swear to God,
Speaker 1: red glowing eyes. I was never scared. I was too
Speaker 1: angry to be a friend. I was mentally yelling to
Speaker 1: the big bully to let me go and give me
Speaker 1: a shot. He looked at me as an older man
Speaker 1: would at an nineteen year old, and as clear as day,
Speaker 1: without making an audible sound, he said, thank you for
Speaker 1: taking care of our home. You are our friend. Well.
Speaker 1: I immediately felt calm, and we stared at each other
Speaker 1: for a long minute or two. He had a human
Speaker 1: face with only a beard for facial hair. He was
Speaker 1: four feet, white at the shoulders, and his hair hid
Speaker 1: any neck that he might have had, and his nose
Speaker 1: was turned down, almost human like. His arms were along
Speaker 1: with hands that hung down below his knees, and his
Speaker 1: chest was ripped. I knew the chainsaw would have been
Speaker 1: a bad idea. He was definitely a male, and he
Speaker 1: was standing a mere four feet from me, and he
Speaker 1: could have reached out and grabbed me at any moment.
Speaker 1: I started to listen with my ears. Everyone was snoring
Speaker 1: and making normal sleeping sounds. I looked back at him,
Speaker 1: and he honestly gave me a polite nod, and then
Speaker 1: he turned and took three or four easy steps that
Speaker 1: made no sound, and carried him in an unreasonable distance
Speaker 1: to where he passed between two trees. At that point,
Speaker 1: he just vanished where he had been looked like the
Speaker 1: transporter Sparkles from a Star Trek episode. I'm no kidding.
Speaker 1: It was like beat me up, Scottie type stuff. And
Speaker 1: then it was dead quiet, and the guy sleeping four
Speaker 1: feet away started whimpering quietly, and the guy next to
Speaker 1: him made a sound like he was soiling his pants. Well,
Speaker 1: I stayed quiet until the sky turned purple in the east.
Speaker 1: Before I finally got off to relieve myself. I turned
Speaker 1: when I was done, and I saw John, my crew ball,
Speaker 1: standing right behind me. He was looking at me with
Speaker 1: a serious expression on his face. Who else was all?
Speaker 1: He said? Later, I told two other guys and my
Speaker 1: crew about the incident, and this is where the Bigfoot
Speaker 1: and the government messed with my life and my freedoms.
Speaker 1: I was sternly ordered to go get the other two
Speaker 1: guys and bring them back to that spot, while the
Speaker 1: rest of the crew was sent to prep the LZ
Speaker 1: for the choppers. John my boss, held up his hand
Speaker 1: and he walked back to us, and he told us
Speaker 1: not to speak, and then he advised us that as
Speaker 1: employees of the federal government, we now had top secret
Speaker 1: clearances and we were never to speak to anyone of
Speaker 1: the bear encounter, not even amongst ourselves. I begged him
Speaker 1: to answer just one question from each of us. He
Speaker 1: gave me a disappointed look, and he walked away to
Speaker 1: meet the others at the chopper. While the three of
Speaker 1: us made our way to the meadow. I tried to
Speaker 1: speak with my teammates, but to no avail. They were
Speaker 1: both clearly in shock and would not utter a word.
Speaker 1: We made the chopper ride back to town, where we
Speaker 1: each met individually with top FS brass. I don't know
Speaker 1: what FS Forestry Service brass. After a lengthy deep briefing
Speaker 1: and some scary warnings, I headed for the showers and
Speaker 1: then I went to chow. I was told that both
Speaker 1: of my team members were sick and had been sent
Speaker 1: home due to smoke inholation. I made the decision then
Speaker 1: to shut up Levenworth Supermacs didn't sound too inviting to me,
Speaker 1: and when we left Quincy, we traveled back to our
Speaker 1: forest to work and wait for the next fire call.
Speaker 1: Now I did my best to act normal, but I
Speaker 1: felt like everyone knew my secret. It was a long
Speaker 1: time before I was able to relax in my own
Speaker 1: skin again. During the mid season, we were called to
Speaker 1: go a couple of hours south to then Sierra National
Speaker 1: Forest east of Fresno, near Sequoia an Yosemite National Park.
Speaker 1: The fire was slow moving, so John and I hiked
Speaker 1: up a ridge across the canyon from the burn that
Speaker 1: was slowly moving up the opposite ridge through a stand
Speaker 1: of trees. Along the other ridge was a logged area
Speaker 1: that ran to the top, with a stand of trees
Speaker 1: that ran along to its left and standing in the
Speaker 1: middle of the logged area. About halfway up the ridge
Speaker 1: was an eight to nine foot reddish brown bigfoot or
Speaker 1: this guy right sabe. I don't know where that word
Speaker 1: came from. It's pretty new. It's pretty new. People are
Speaker 1: using it all over YouTube, but we'll call them sabe.
Speaker 1: Whatever it was standing there assessing the fire just as
Speaker 1: we were, all I could think about was how the
Speaker 1: bully held me down with his frieze ray eyes the
Speaker 1: last time we met. Now, I put as much concern
Speaker 1: into broadcasting one very clear message to this bastard, and
Speaker 1: it was two words, but I don't want to repeat them. Here.
Speaker 1: We were at least four hundred and fifty yards in
Speaker 1: a tree line across the canyon, but he looked directly
Speaker 1: at me. He gave me a slight wave by raising
Speaker 1: his hand, and took another look at the fire. And
Speaker 1: then he turned toward the opposite stand of trees, and wow,
Speaker 1: he covered the three hundred yard side hill to the
Speaker 1: opposite stand of trees and a time and speed that
Speaker 1: was not physically possible by the physics that we understand
Speaker 1: right now. The weirdest part was that he looked like
Speaker 1: he was gliding. Each stride covered huge distances, and then
Speaker 1: just like before, he passed into a tree line and vanished,
Speaker 1: and he was followed by two softball sized orbs. It
Speaker 1: was midday and very clear, with all the smoke traveling
Speaker 1: up over the other ridge well. I turned and looked
Speaker 1: to John, and he smiled at me, and he said,
Speaker 1: what did you think of that bear? It didn't mind
Speaker 1: speak to us so much as it sent an emphatic,
Speaker 1: thankful feeling. Now I wouldn't want to be on this
Speaker 1: giant's bad side. Nothing was said between John and me,
Speaker 1: but again, it didn't frighten me nearly as much as
Speaker 1: it amazed me and made me angry at the jerks
Speaker 1: who had been letting me run around this forest since
Speaker 1: I was five years old without telling me that the
Speaker 1: Boogeyman was real. The last time I had occasion to
Speaker 1: work with our fellow protectors happened midway through my second
Speaker 1: fire season. We were dispatched to Yosemite, which shares a
Speaker 1: border with our home forest. We grouped at the top
Speaker 1: of the glacier point at the ski area for helicopter operations,
Speaker 1: and being in the first sortie, I got a great ride.
Speaker 1: We dropped over a glacier point and went straight toward
Speaker 1: the valley floor, and the pilot pulled level at five
Speaker 1: hundred feet and banked off El Capitain and then circled
Speaker 1: toward Bridal Veil Falls, where the fire was located. On
Speaker 1: this fire, I had to repel down and have my
Speaker 1: saw lowered, and the boss made a couple of sweeps
Speaker 1: while I was fed, selling three trees giving us the
Speaker 1: clearance for the roads. I had already started to move
Speaker 1: up the slope toward the fire, tying ribbons and limbing trees,
Speaker 1: and as I came over a rise, another sabe was
Speaker 1: standing twenty feet away. Well, I started to laugh at
Speaker 1: the silly smile on its face. He in some way
Speaker 1: communicated that I met his kin and that I was welcome.
Speaker 1: He had me follow him up rout I never would
Speaker 1: have seen otherwise I was in a perfect spot to
Speaker 1: start the initial attack on the burn line. The crew
Speaker 1: followed my trail up and John came over to me
Speaker 1: and he said, you gotta love these bears. Huh. Well,
Speaker 1: those are the official and unofficial encounters that I'm officially
Speaker 1: not supposed to talk about. Thank you and the other
Speaker 1: brave souls who gave me the courage to write the
Speaker 1: wrongs that I can, and that's the end of his email.
Speaker 1: I'm not sure I didn't read any wrongs in this email,
Speaker 1: but I think there are many who were going to
Speaker 1: find this type of encounter quite outlandish. You know. I
Speaker 1: think this is like putting magical powers on these bigfoot
Speaker 1: That's not me. I thought the story was great. I'm
Speaker 1: not saying that, but I bet there are some if
Speaker 1: I'm right, there are some out there who are going
Speaker 1: to go, oh, this is kind of a crazy story.
Speaker 1: But this guy obviously sounds like he knows about fire
Speaker 1: jumping and firefighting in the national forests. And these guys
Speaker 1: are raw high dudes. They're not. They don't play around.
Speaker 1: They're in fantastic shape, they eat good, they exercise all
Speaker 1: the time, and they when they're fighting fires, they're out
Speaker 1: there for days, days without sleep. I read a book
Speaker 1: not too long ago, well it was actually ten or
Speaker 1: fifteen years ago by Norman maclan. It was I think
Speaker 1: it was called young Men and Fire. It was about
Speaker 1: the man Gulch Fire. I can't remember. Maybe it was
Speaker 1: in the sixties, maybe eight or ten firefighters died fighting
Speaker 1: that fire, and they learned a lot from it. It's
Speaker 1: a great book. Norman McLain. Norman McLain wrote the book
Speaker 1: A River Runs Through It that was later turned into
Speaker 1: a movie with Brad Pitt and some other guys, and
Speaker 1: it's a good movie. It's a good movie, but the
Speaker 1: book is better. But he wrote a piece of nine.
Speaker 1: A River Runs Through It is fiction, But he wrote
Speaker 1: a piece of nonfiction called young Men and Fire. I
Speaker 1: strongly recommend you read that book. Norman McClain was a
Speaker 1: fantastic writer. He was a very smart, scholarly writer. And
Speaker 1: when you can read stuff like that, you really learn something.
Speaker 1: So I don't know, I'm just rambling about stuff that
Speaker 1: came to my memory as I was reading this. And
Speaker 1: these firefighters have always impressed me, you know, the kind
Speaker 1: of work they do and the things they're willing to
Speaker 1: do to fight these fires. I think they're in it
Speaker 1: for the adventure. But to run into a big foot
Speaker 1: out in the middle of the woods and him, do
Speaker 1: mine speak with you, you see orbs or involved. There
Speaker 1: is no aggressive feelings or any fear of these things.
Speaker 1: They kind of, according to this this bigfoot or Sabe
Speaker 1: as he called it, seems to mind speak with him
Speaker 1: to calm him. Isn't that cool. I think that's really cool. Well,
Speaker 1: thanks to the writer for the story. I thought it
Speaker 1: was great.