WEBVTT 1 00:00:02.520 --> 00:00:05.759 For decades, people have disappeared in the woods without a trace. 2 00:00:06.519 --> 00:00:10.279 Some blame wild animals, others whisper of creatures the world 3 00:00:10.359 --> 00:00:14.160 refuses to believe in. But those who have survived they 4 00:00:14.199 --> 00:00:18.679 know the truth. Welcome to Backwoods Bigfoot Stories, where we 5 00:00:18.719 --> 00:00:22.839 share real encounters with the things lurking in the darkness Bigfoot, 6 00:00:23.199 --> 00:00:28.239 dog man UFOs, and creatures that defy explanation. Some make 7 00:00:28.280 --> 00:00:32.320 it out, others aren't so lucky. Are you ready, because 8 00:00:32.320 --> 00:00:34.640 once you hear these stories, you'll never walk in the 9 00:00:34.640 --> 00:00:38.920 woods alone again. So grab your flashlight, stay close and 10 00:00:39.039 --> 00:00:41.840 remember some things in the woods don't want to be found. 11 00:00:42.520 --> 00:00:46.240 Hit that follow or subscribe button, turn on auto downloads, 12 00:00:46.439 --> 00:00:47.840 and let's head off into the woods. 13 00:00:47.880 --> 00:00:48.640 If you dare. 14 00:01:03.039 --> 00:01:05.959 Today, we're pulling off the road again. We're taking a 15 00:01:06.000 --> 00:01:09.519 little detour across the pond. I get mail from England. 16 00:01:09.760 --> 00:01:12.079 I get mail from Australia, and a lot of it, 17 00:01:12.400 --> 00:01:15.319 which won't surprise anybody who knows what the Yawe's reputation 18 00:01:15.480 --> 00:01:18.519 is down there. I get mail from Canada and Malaysia 19 00:01:18.599 --> 00:01:21.719 and Brazil. I've gotten mail from a man in Siberia 20 00:01:21.760 --> 00:01:23.799 who wrote most of it in Russian and had his 21 00:01:23.879 --> 00:01:26.719 daughter translate the rest, and I got a letter last 22 00:01:26.760 --> 00:01:29.439 year from a trekking guide in Bhutan that I've read 23 00:01:29.480 --> 00:01:32.719 probably twenty times. Because it's not like anything else in 24 00:01:32.760 --> 00:01:35.280 the pile. What I've picked out for you are five 25 00:01:35.319 --> 00:01:39.599 accounts from five countries. The places are real. Every forest, 26 00:01:39.879 --> 00:01:43.280 every mountain, every river, and village and campground you're going 27 00:01:43.359 --> 00:01:45.840 to hear named over the next hour is a real 28 00:01:45.879 --> 00:01:48.640 place with a real name that you can pull up 29 00:01:48.640 --> 00:01:51.079 on a map before you go to bed tonight. That 30 00:01:51.159 --> 00:01:53.879 matters to me. I want you to be able to check. 31 00:01:54.400 --> 00:01:56.359 I want you to see that these things happen in 32 00:01:56.439 --> 00:02:00.640 working forests and national parks and cattle country, in places 33 00:02:00.640 --> 00:02:03.359 where people go camping with their kids, and not in 34 00:02:03.439 --> 00:02:06.439 some made up hollow that only exists in a podcast. 35 00:02:06.959 --> 00:02:11.120 Different countries, different names for it, same shape, walking through 36 00:02:11.159 --> 00:02:15.599 the trees. First stop, England. The dog wouldn't get out 37 00:02:15.599 --> 00:02:18.840 of the car. That's where Neil starts, and he starts 38 00:02:18.879 --> 00:02:21.319 there because it's the part he can't argue his way 39 00:02:21.360 --> 00:02:25.960 around everything else he spent years explaining to himself. He 40 00:02:26.000 --> 00:02:29.080 can explain the sounds, he can explain what he thought 41 00:02:29.080 --> 00:02:32.319 he saw against the skyline. He cannot explain why a 42 00:02:32.400 --> 00:02:35.240 lurcher that had spent four years dragging him across Cannic 43 00:02:35.319 --> 00:02:38.120 Chase by the lead planted her feet in the footwell 44 00:02:38.199 --> 00:02:41.479 of a Vauxhall estate and refused to come out, and 45 00:02:41.520 --> 00:02:44.879 then started shaking. Neil was thirty one at the time. 46 00:02:45.319 --> 00:02:48.120 He worked nights at a distribution warehouse in Headinsford in 47 00:02:48.159 --> 00:02:52.240 Staffordshire in the English Midlands, loading trailers on a shift 48 00:02:52.360 --> 00:02:55.759 that let him out at eleven o'clock. The dog's name 49 00:02:55.800 --> 00:02:58.639 was Bess and she was a lurcher, which, for anybody 50 00:02:58.680 --> 00:03:01.120 who hasn't spent time around them as a running dog 51 00:03:01.599 --> 00:03:05.879 a sighthound crossed with something workmanlike bread for coursing rabbits 52 00:03:05.879 --> 00:03:09.800 and hares. She needed miles the way other dogs need dinner, 53 00:03:10.280 --> 00:03:12.759 So after his shift four or five nights a week, 54 00:03:13.080 --> 00:03:15.560 Neil would drive fifteen minutes up onto the chase and 55 00:03:15.639 --> 00:03:18.479 walk her until she'd had enough, which usually meant an 56 00:03:18.520 --> 00:03:22.759 hour and sometimes meant too. Cannic Chase covers something close 57 00:03:22.800 --> 00:03:26.080 to twenty six square miles of heathland and forestry in 58 00:03:26.120 --> 00:03:29.080 the middle of England, which sounds like nothing until you're 59 00:03:29.120 --> 00:03:33.319 standing in it at midnight. It's mostly conifer plantation now 60 00:03:33.759 --> 00:03:37.199 planted in long, straight blocks with fire breaks cut between them, 61 00:03:37.599 --> 00:03:40.080 and in the gaps you've got open heather and bracken 62 00:03:40.120 --> 00:03:43.879 and boggy ground where the streams run. It's the largest 63 00:03:43.879 --> 00:03:48.240 surviving lowland heath in the country. There are fallow deer everywhere, 64 00:03:48.280 --> 00:03:51.000 including a small population of white ones that show up 65 00:03:51.039 --> 00:03:55.360 on postcards. There are old military scars all through it, 66 00:03:55.759 --> 00:03:58.439 because during the First World War the Chase held two 67 00:03:58.639 --> 00:04:02.319 enormous training camps, Lockton and Rugelie, and something like half 68 00:04:02.319 --> 00:04:04.759 a million men passed through them on the way to France. 69 00:04:05.520 --> 00:04:08.719 Most of that's gone back to woodland now. What's left 70 00:04:08.759 --> 00:04:11.840 are concrete pads in the bracken and the outline of 71 00:04:11.879 --> 00:04:14.560 a rifle range, and a scale model of a Belgian 72 00:04:14.599 --> 00:04:17.600 battlefield ridge that the New Zealand troops built out of 73 00:04:17.680 --> 00:04:21.240 concrete and then buried when they left. There's a German 74 00:04:21.279 --> 00:04:25.240 military cemetery on the Chase at Broadhurst Green, where nearly 75 00:04:25.319 --> 00:04:28.480 five thousand German war dead were brought and reburied in 76 00:04:28.519 --> 00:04:32.560 the nineteen sixties. There's an iron age hill fort called 77 00:04:32.639 --> 00:04:35.319 Castle Ring on the high ground at the southern end. 78 00:04:35.879 --> 00:04:39.600 There's a Victorian curiosity called the glacial Boulder that somebody 79 00:04:39.600 --> 00:04:42.199 hauled up and stuck on a plinth because the ice 80 00:04:42.240 --> 00:04:45.639 sheets left it there. And there's a valley called Sherbrook 81 00:04:45.839 --> 00:04:47.959 that runs down through the middle of the whole thing, 82 00:04:48.040 --> 00:04:50.279 with a line of stepping stones across the brook at 83 00:04:50.319 --> 00:04:53.120 the bottom, which is where families take their kids on 84 00:04:53.160 --> 00:04:57.160 Sunday afternoons. I say all that so you understand the setting. 85 00:04:57.800 --> 00:05:02.040 This isn't wilderness. Nothing in England is wilderness. This is 86 00:05:02.079 --> 00:05:05.439 a country park with car parks and waymark trails and 87 00:05:05.480 --> 00:05:08.560 a visitor center at Birch's Valley that sells ice cream. 88 00:05:08.560 --> 00:05:11.600 In the summer, on a Saturday, you'll pass one hundred 89 00:05:11.639 --> 00:05:14.639 people at one in the morning. In November you'll pass 90 00:05:14.720 --> 00:05:18.360 nobody at all. And the difference between those two experiences 91 00:05:18.480 --> 00:05:22.199 is bigger than anyone expects. Neil knew the Chase had 92 00:05:22.199 --> 00:05:25.759 a reputation before any of this started. Locally, it's famous 93 00:05:25.759 --> 00:05:28.920 for it. There have been reports going back decades of 94 00:05:28.920 --> 00:05:32.040 a black eyed child seen at the roadside, and there's 95 00:05:32.079 --> 00:05:34.680 a whole cottage industry around a thing the papers call 96 00:05:35.000 --> 00:05:38.279 the Canic Chase werewolf, which people have been reporting since 97 00:05:38.319 --> 00:05:42.199 at least the nineteen seventies. Neil's opinion on all of that, 98 00:05:42.519 --> 00:05:45.000 in his own words, was that it was rubbish put 99 00:05:45.040 --> 00:05:47.000 about by people who wanted to be on the telly. 100 00:05:47.959 --> 00:05:50.600 He'd walked the chase after dark for four years and 101 00:05:50.680 --> 00:05:53.079 the worst thing that ever happened to him was stepping 102 00:05:53.120 --> 00:05:56.040 in a bog up to his knee. The first thing 103 00:05:56.079 --> 00:05:59.000 that changed was the whistle. Neil had a two note 104 00:05:59.000 --> 00:06:02.800 whistle he used for I then low, and he'd used 105 00:06:02.839 --> 00:06:06.079 it so long he didn't think about it anymore. One 106 00:06:06.160 --> 00:06:09.000 night in early October, walking the fire break that runs 107 00:06:09.040 --> 00:06:11.759 up from the glacial boulder, he whistled for her and 108 00:06:11.839 --> 00:06:15.519 something whistled back. He didn't panic about it. He assumed 109 00:06:15.519 --> 00:06:18.720 it was another walker being funny, or a kid, or 110 00:06:18.759 --> 00:06:22.519 somebody's ringtone carrying. He whistled again, and it came back 111 00:06:22.560 --> 00:06:24.680 again from a different direction, off to. 112 00:06:24.680 --> 00:06:27.120 His right, further up the slope. 113 00:06:27.199 --> 00:06:29.079 He stood there in the dark, on a fire break 114 00:06:29.079 --> 00:06:31.439 two hundred meters from his car, and had a short 115 00:06:31.439 --> 00:06:34.920 conversation with whatever it was. And then Bess came trotting 116 00:06:34.959 --> 00:06:37.079 out of the bracken, and he clipped her lead on 117 00:06:37.439 --> 00:06:40.800 and walked back and drove home. What bothered him afterward. 118 00:06:40.920 --> 00:06:44.279 Wasn't that something answered? It's that the answer was accurate, 119 00:06:44.720 --> 00:06:48.279 not close, not similar, the same two notes at the 120 00:06:48.279 --> 00:06:51.839 same interval, the second note dropping the same distance, with 121 00:06:51.920 --> 00:06:54.319 the same little break in the middle where Neil's whistle 122 00:06:54.360 --> 00:06:57.079 always cracked because of a chipped front tooth he'd had 123 00:06:57.079 --> 00:06:59.920 since he was nine. He went back the next night. 124 00:07:00.480 --> 00:07:02.439 He tell you himself that he went back to prove 125 00:07:02.480 --> 00:07:05.560 to himself it was nothing. He parked at the same place, 126 00:07:06.000 --> 00:07:09.720 walked the same firebreak, and nothing happened at all. He 127 00:07:09.759 --> 00:07:12.000 did the same thing the night after that, and the 128 00:07:12.040 --> 00:07:14.519 same thing the night after that, and by the middle 129 00:07:14.560 --> 00:07:17.240 of the month he'd stopped thinking about it. But the 130 00:07:17.279 --> 00:07:20.120 deer told him it wasn't over fallow. Deer on the 131 00:07:20.199 --> 00:07:23.079 chase are used to people. They graze along the edges 132 00:07:23.120 --> 00:07:25.600 of the car parks, and they'll stand and look at you. 133 00:07:26.480 --> 00:07:28.680 What they did on the last week of October, according 134 00:07:28.720 --> 00:07:31.560 to Neil, was come through the plantation in a body 135 00:07:31.839 --> 00:07:34.879 at a dead run, crossing the ride. He was standing 136 00:07:34.879 --> 00:07:38.120 on maybe forty meters ahead of him. He counted eleven 137 00:07:38.160 --> 00:07:41.079 of them. They weren't spooking away from him because they 138 00:07:41.079 --> 00:07:44.800 crossed his path and kept going they were leaving something else. 139 00:07:45.480 --> 00:07:49.600 Best went flat, not barking, not growling, down on her 140 00:07:49.639 --> 00:07:52.839 belly and the wet grass with her ears back. Neil 141 00:07:52.879 --> 00:07:55.560 stood there for what he estimates was two or three minutes. 142 00:07:56.079 --> 00:07:58.639 He heard the deer crash away downhill, and then he 143 00:07:58.639 --> 00:08:01.920 heard nothing, and he heard something moving in the plantation 144 00:08:02.079 --> 00:08:05.319 on his left, up the slope, moving parallel to the 145 00:08:05.399 --> 00:08:08.959 ride he was standing on, not fast, not trying to 146 00:08:09.000 --> 00:08:12.279 be quiet either. He described the sound as a series 147 00:08:12.319 --> 00:08:15.759 of individual steps with a long gap between them, and 148 00:08:15.800 --> 00:08:18.079 the thing about the gap that stuck with him is 149 00:08:18.120 --> 00:08:20.560 that it was too long. He said, it was the 150 00:08:20.639 --> 00:08:22.959 rhythm of something with a much longer leg than a 151 00:08:23.000 --> 00:08:27.360 deer taking its time. Then it whistled at him, two 152 00:08:27.480 --> 00:08:30.720 notes high, then low, with the crack in the middle. 153 00:08:31.560 --> 00:08:34.600 Neil ran. He ran downhill with the dog ahead of him, 154 00:08:34.879 --> 00:08:37.120 and he fell at least once. And he got to 155 00:08:37.159 --> 00:08:39.120 the car park and got Best in the back and 156 00:08:39.159 --> 00:08:41.360 sat with the engine running and the doors locked for 157 00:08:41.360 --> 00:08:45.000 a while before he drove home. And he decided, sitting 158 00:08:45.000 --> 00:08:47.559 in the car that he'd been listening to a bird. 159 00:08:48.519 --> 00:08:51.240 There's a bird in Britain called a tawny owl, and 160 00:08:51.279 --> 00:08:54.399 it does a contact call. That's a sharp rising note, 161 00:08:55.000 --> 00:08:58.039 and Neil spent the following week convincing himself that's what 162 00:08:58.080 --> 00:09:01.000 it was. Two weeks later, he took Bess up to 163 00:09:01.039 --> 00:09:03.840 the Sherbrooke Valley car park at about half past eleven, 164 00:09:04.159 --> 00:09:06.639 and the dog wouldn't get out of the car. He 165 00:09:06.720 --> 00:09:09.200 tried for ten minutes. He got the lead on her 166 00:09:09.200 --> 00:09:11.759 and pulled gently, and she braced against it. 167 00:09:12.399 --> 00:09:13.639 He picked her up and set. 168 00:09:13.440 --> 00:09:16.159 Her on the tarmac, and she scrambled straight back in 169 00:09:16.200 --> 00:09:18.600 through the open door and got down in the footwell 170 00:09:18.639 --> 00:09:21.799 behind the driver's seat and shook. Neil said she'd never 171 00:09:21.840 --> 00:09:24.080 done that in her life, and never did it again 172 00:09:24.120 --> 00:09:27.320 anywhere else. She'd get out at any other car park 173 00:09:27.360 --> 00:09:30.840 on the chase, just not that one, not that night. 174 00:09:31.679 --> 00:09:34.480 So Neil did something he now describes as the stupidest 175 00:09:34.480 --> 00:09:37.440 decision he's ever made. He shut the dog in the 176 00:09:37.480 --> 00:09:39.679 car and walked down into the valley on his own. 177 00:09:40.480 --> 00:09:43.279 The Sherbrooke Valley is open at the bottom, Heather and 178 00:09:43.320 --> 00:09:45.679 Bill Barry and the brook running through it, with the 179 00:09:45.720 --> 00:09:49.639 plantation edges standing up on both sides. There was enough 180 00:09:49.679 --> 00:09:51.519 moon that night that he didn't need a torch on 181 00:09:51.559 --> 00:09:54.480 the open ground. He walked down the path toward the 182 00:09:54.480 --> 00:09:55.679 stepping stones. 183 00:09:55.320 --> 00:09:55.960 And stood there. 184 00:09:56.399 --> 00:09:59.639 And what he heard first was Bess Neil heard his 185 00:09:59.720 --> 00:10:03.440 dog whining the specific rising wine best made when she 186 00:10:03.480 --> 00:10:05.879 wanted out of a room. He heard it from the 187 00:10:05.919 --> 00:10:08.440 tree line on the eastern side of the valley, about 188 00:10:08.440 --> 00:10:10.919 one hundred meters up the slope, and his car, with 189 00:10:11.000 --> 00:10:13.960 his dog inside it was four hundred meters behind him 190 00:10:14.120 --> 00:10:17.120 in the other direction, with the window shut. He turned 191 00:10:17.120 --> 00:10:19.200 his torch on and put it on the tree line 192 00:10:19.480 --> 00:10:22.720 and saw nothing but pine trunks. He turned it off. 193 00:10:23.600 --> 00:10:27.159 The wine came again closer, and this time it was wrong. 194 00:10:27.720 --> 00:10:30.279 It had too much air in it. He said, it 195 00:10:30.320 --> 00:10:33.279 sounded like somebody imitating a dog by pushing air through 196 00:10:33.279 --> 00:10:36.559 a much bigger throat and getting it about eighty percent right. 197 00:10:37.200 --> 00:10:38.039 Then he smelled it. 198 00:10:38.519 --> 00:10:40.600 He described it as a wet dog kept in a 199 00:10:40.639 --> 00:10:44.279 shed with something sour underneath it, like a bend that's 200 00:10:44.320 --> 00:10:46.720 had meat in it. It came in on the air, 201 00:10:46.759 --> 00:10:48.879 and then it went away again, and then it came 202 00:10:48.919 --> 00:10:52.240 back stronger, and then he saw the shape. He didn't 203 00:10:52.240 --> 00:10:55.720 see a face. He didn't see hair or fingers or eyeshine, 204 00:10:56.519 --> 00:10:58.639 what he saw was a section of the tree line 205 00:10:58.639 --> 00:11:02.120 where the vertical lines were in erupted a black column 206 00:11:02.120 --> 00:11:05.720 standing out from the trunks, wider than the trunks. It 207 00:11:05.799 --> 00:11:08.600 was there when he looked, and gone when he looked back. 208 00:11:09.320 --> 00:11:10.480 He went back and measured it. 209 00:11:10.559 --> 00:11:10.840 Later. 210 00:11:11.679 --> 00:11:14.360 There's a post and rail fence along part of that slope, 211 00:11:14.519 --> 00:11:16.600 with posts that come to the top of Neil's hip. 212 00:11:17.039 --> 00:11:19.080 And he went back in daylight and stood where the 213 00:11:19.080 --> 00:11:21.720 thing had stood and worked out where the fence. 214 00:11:21.480 --> 00:11:22.639 Line ran behind it. 215 00:11:23.200 --> 00:11:25.840 His estimate is that the shape was somewhere around seven 216 00:11:25.879 --> 00:11:29.480 feet maybe a little more. Then it moved off uphill 217 00:11:29.519 --> 00:11:33.240 through standing bracken without breaking stride. Neil said that he 218 00:11:33.279 --> 00:11:36.200 couldn't do that section in daylight without using his hands. 219 00:11:37.000 --> 00:11:39.159 He walked out of that valley backwards for the first 220 00:11:39.159 --> 00:11:43.559 fifty meters, then he turned around and ran again. The 221 00:11:43.639 --> 00:11:46.519 last piece of this happened four days later. He went 222 00:11:46.559 --> 00:11:48.960 back up in the daytime to walk the same ground 223 00:11:49.240 --> 00:11:52.879 and proved to himself that it was all ordinary. About 224 00:11:52.879 --> 00:11:55.759 three hundred meters from where he'd stood at the stepping stones, 225 00:11:56.120 --> 00:11:58.919 up on the wooded slope, he found a fallow deer 226 00:11:59.039 --> 00:12:02.120 wedged into the four of a Scot's pine at roughly 227 00:12:02.200 --> 00:12:06.039 head height, not hung there in a neat way, jammed in, 228 00:12:06.159 --> 00:12:09.200 with the hind quarters missing and the rib cage largely stripped. 229 00:12:10.039 --> 00:12:10.840 He reported it. 230 00:12:10.759 --> 00:12:13.320 To a forestry worker he found at Birch's Valley, who 231 00:12:13.320 --> 00:12:16.159 told him it was almost certainly dogs, and that they 232 00:12:16.200 --> 00:12:19.440 get deer killed by dogs on the chase regularly, and 233 00:12:19.519 --> 00:12:22.279 that the tree was probably a coincidence because the animal 234 00:12:22.279 --> 00:12:25.440 could have been dragged and dropped. Neil said, he asked 235 00:12:25.440 --> 00:12:28.240 how a dog gets a deer to head height. He says, 236 00:12:28.240 --> 00:12:31.080 the man shrugged and said people do daft things, and 237 00:12:31.159 --> 00:12:33.360 that some lad had probably found it dead and put 238 00:12:33.360 --> 00:12:36.759 it up there for a laugh. That's not an unreasonable answer. 239 00:12:37.240 --> 00:12:40.039 That's the answer I'd probably have given as a police officer, 240 00:12:40.480 --> 00:12:43.480 because the boring explanation is right most of the time, 241 00:12:43.840 --> 00:12:46.039 and you'd be a fool to lead with anything else. 242 00:12:47.000 --> 00:12:49.720 But there's a detail Neil noticed that day and didn't 243 00:12:49.759 --> 00:12:52.720 think about until later, and it's the detail that ended 244 00:12:52.720 --> 00:12:56.320 his night walking on Cannon Chase for good. In the 245 00:12:56.360 --> 00:12:59.440 soft ground at the base of that pine, in among 246 00:12:59.480 --> 00:13:02.320 the churned mess where the deer had bled out, there 247 00:13:02.360 --> 00:13:04.720 was a single clean impression in the mud that he 248 00:13:04.759 --> 00:13:07.759 crouched down and looked at for a long time. He 249 00:13:07.799 --> 00:13:11.039 didn't cast it, he didn't photograph it, and he's annoyed 250 00:13:11.039 --> 00:13:13.720 with himself about that. He said it was longer than 251 00:13:13.759 --> 00:13:16.799 his boot by a good margin. It was flat, and 252 00:13:16.840 --> 00:13:20.840 it had toes Neil kept walking the chase. He'd been 253 00:13:20.840 --> 00:13:22.399 going up there since he was a boy, and he 254 00:13:22.440 --> 00:13:24.679 wasn't going to let it be taken off him. He 255 00:13:24.799 --> 00:13:27.399 just went in daylight from then on with other people 256 00:13:27.399 --> 00:13:29.879 when he could get them. And Bess lived another five 257 00:13:29.960 --> 00:13:32.159 years and died old on a rug in his kitchen. 258 00:13:32.759 --> 00:13:36.039 He hasn't whistled since, not for a dog, not for 259 00:13:36.080 --> 00:13:40.159 a taxi, not absent mindedly in the house. He told 260 00:13:40.159 --> 00:13:42.000 me his wife has asked him about it, and he 261 00:13:42.080 --> 00:13:44.679 changes the subject because he doesn't want to be the 262 00:13:44.679 --> 00:13:47.159 man who explains to his wife that he stopped whistling 263 00:13:47.200 --> 00:13:49.840 because something on the chase learned how to do it back. 264 00:13:50.879 --> 00:13:53.000 That's a small country with a lot of people in it, 265 00:13:53.519 --> 00:13:56.399 and something on twenty six square miles of pine plantation 266 00:13:56.799 --> 00:13:58.759 managed to stay out of sight in the middle of it. 267 00:13:59.600 --> 00:14:01.759 Keep that in your head, because we're about to go 268 00:14:01.840 --> 00:14:05.399 somewhere with an awful lot more room to hide. Next stop, 269 00:14:05.639 --> 00:14:09.080 Central China. The camera fired eleven times in one night, 270 00:14:09.120 --> 00:14:12.720 and every single frame came back. Black Lynn was twenty 271 00:14:12.759 --> 00:14:15.080 six years old and working as a field assistant on 272 00:14:15.120 --> 00:14:18.960 a primate survey in the Shenongjia Forestry District in Hubei 273 00:14:19.039 --> 00:14:23.639 Province in central China. Her job was mostly walking. She'd 274 00:14:23.679 --> 00:14:27.320 hike transects at first light, record what she saw, service 275 00:14:27.360 --> 00:14:30.279 a string of motion triggered cameras strapped to fur trunks, 276 00:14:30.720 --> 00:14:34.720 swap out memory cards and batteries, and hike back. The 277 00:14:34.759 --> 00:14:38.240 target species was the golden snub nosed monkey, which is 278 00:14:38.279 --> 00:14:41.519 one of the strangest looking animals in Asia, blue faced 279 00:14:41.559 --> 00:14:44.639 with orange fur, and rare enough that the province takes 280 00:14:44.679 --> 00:14:48.759 counting them seriously. Shenongjia is a real place, and it's 281 00:14:48.799 --> 00:14:52.120 worth understanding what kind of place it is. It's a 282 00:14:52.159 --> 00:14:56.279 mountain massaf in the Daba Range, protected land listed by 283 00:14:56.320 --> 00:14:59.440 the United Nations as a World Heritage Site for its 284 00:14:59.440 --> 00:15:03.720 plant diverse Stay tuned for more Backwoods Bigfoot stories. We'll 285 00:15:03.720 --> 00:15:09.080 be back after these messages. The high point, Sheenong Peak, 286 00:15:09.360 --> 00:15:12.279 stands at a little over ten thousand feet. There are 287 00:15:12.320 --> 00:15:15.399 stands of virgin fur and hemlock up there, and thickets 288 00:15:15.440 --> 00:15:18.480 of arrow bamboo that grow so densely you can't push 289 00:15:18.519 --> 00:15:21.960 through them without a blade. There's a wetland basin called 290 00:15:22.039 --> 00:15:25.799 Dodju Lake that gets photographed constantly because the fog sits 291 00:15:25.799 --> 00:15:26.080 on it. 292 00:15:26.840 --> 00:15:27.919 There's a town called. 293 00:15:27.840 --> 00:15:30.960 Muyu where the researchers stay, and a town called hong 294 00:15:31.039 --> 00:15:33.759 Ping on the northern side, and a road that switched 295 00:15:33.759 --> 00:15:37.120 backs up through cloud forest past a cliff face called Bambayon. 296 00:15:37.919 --> 00:15:41.559 And there's the Yarn, which translates roughly as wild man, 297 00:15:42.000 --> 00:15:44.879 in which the Chinese government spent real money looking for. 298 00:15:45.519 --> 00:15:49.000 In nineteen seventy six, a car carrying six local officials 299 00:15:49.039 --> 00:15:52.399 was driving a mountain road near Sinonga at night, and 300 00:15:52.440 --> 00:15:55.120 the people in it reported a large reddish creature in 301 00:15:55.159 --> 00:15:57.840 the headlights that stood up and moved off the road. 302 00:15:58.440 --> 00:16:01.720 They reported it to their superior Within a year, the 303 00:16:01.799 --> 00:16:05.080 Chinese Academy of Sciences had put together an expedition of 304 00:16:05.159 --> 00:16:09.120 well over one hundred people with soldiers and dogs and cameras, 305 00:16:09.679 --> 00:16:12.639 and sent it into these mountains for months. They came 306 00:16:12.679 --> 00:16:17.120 back with hair samples, footprint casts, and no animal. Similar 307 00:16:17.159 --> 00:16:20.120 efforts have gone in since. The hair has been tested 308 00:16:20.159 --> 00:16:23.120 at various points by various labs, and the results have 309 00:16:23.200 --> 00:16:27.639 generally come back as unidentified primate or as degraded and inconclusive. 310 00:16:28.159 --> 00:16:30.840 Which is the same answer researchers get in North America, 311 00:16:31.159 --> 00:16:33.799 and which satisfies exactly nobody. 312 00:16:34.600 --> 00:16:35.679 Lynn knew all of that. 313 00:16:36.240 --> 00:16:39.080 Everybody working in Shinangjia knows it. And she told me 314 00:16:39.120 --> 00:16:43.360 the standard attitude among the younger field staff was affectionate mockery. 315 00:16:43.960 --> 00:16:46.879 There's a year in museum, there are year in statues. 316 00:16:47.440 --> 00:16:50.679 It's a tourism engine. And if you're a biology graduate 317 00:16:50.720 --> 00:16:52.679 carrying a data sheet up a mountain at six in 318 00:16:52.720 --> 00:16:55.159 the morning, the wild man is a joke you make 319 00:16:55.200 --> 00:16:58.879 when somebody trips over a root. She stopped making that joke. 320 00:16:58.919 --> 00:17:01.679 In the last week of April, she was working with 321 00:17:01.720 --> 00:17:05.319 one other assistant, a man named Ping, running a transect 322 00:17:05.319 --> 00:17:07.759 above the tree line of a valley on the northern flank. 323 00:17:08.440 --> 00:17:10.880 They were about two hours in when Ping stopped and 324 00:17:10.880 --> 00:17:14.599 put a hand up. Lynn thought he'd spotted monkeys. What 325 00:17:14.680 --> 00:17:17.480 he'd heard was a knock. She described it as a 326 00:17:17.519 --> 00:17:21.200 single hollow impact wood on wood the sound of somebody 327 00:17:21.279 --> 00:17:24.359 hitting a standing trunk with a branch. It came from 328 00:17:24.359 --> 00:17:28.279 below and behind them. They waited, and it came twice more, 329 00:17:28.720 --> 00:17:32.519 spaced out over maybe a minute, and then nothing. Ping 330 00:17:32.599 --> 00:17:36.319 said it was a woodpecker. Lynn said, woodpecker's drum. They 331 00:17:36.319 --> 00:17:39.279 don't knock once and wait, and Ping said he knew that. 332 00:17:39.799 --> 00:17:42.279 And then they both stood there, not looking at each other. 333 00:17:43.200 --> 00:17:46.279 Twenty minutes further up the transect, something through a rock. 334 00:17:47.200 --> 00:17:49.519 She's very specific about this, and I'll relay it the 335 00:17:49.599 --> 00:17:52.319 way she told it. She did not see it thrown. 336 00:17:52.799 --> 00:17:55.160 She heard it come through the bamboo above them. She 337 00:17:55.200 --> 00:17:57.720 heard it hit the slope about four meters to her left, 338 00:17:58.119 --> 00:18:00.319 and she went and looked at it. It was a 339 00:18:00.319 --> 00:18:02.839 piece of gray rock, roughly the size of a fist, 340 00:18:03.200 --> 00:18:06.279 sitting on top of the leaf, litter dry on the underside, 341 00:18:06.359 --> 00:18:09.200 and clean of moss on all faces. There was no 342 00:18:09.240 --> 00:18:12.240 cliff above them, just a bamboo slope running up at 343 00:18:12.240 --> 00:18:15.000 maybe thirty degrees. She turned it over in her hands 344 00:18:15.039 --> 00:18:16.880 and put it in her pack, and she still has it. 345 00:18:17.519 --> 00:18:21.160 They kept working and finished the transect. Lynn makes the 346 00:18:21.200 --> 00:18:24.480 point that in daylight with a colleague with work to do. 347 00:18:25.119 --> 00:18:28.279 The human brain files things away and keeps walking. And 348 00:18:28.319 --> 00:18:31.559 I've seen that one hundred times in witness statements. People 349 00:18:31.559 --> 00:18:34.559 don't behave the way they think they'll behave. They finished 350 00:18:34.599 --> 00:18:38.799 the job. The smell came on the way down, she said. 351 00:18:38.839 --> 00:18:41.759 It arrived all at once in a valley with no wind, 352 00:18:42.319 --> 00:18:45.359 and it was strong enough that ping gagged wet fur, 353 00:18:45.599 --> 00:18:48.240 and under it something sharp and sour that she compared 354 00:18:48.279 --> 00:18:51.000 to vinegar and to the ammonia stink of an animal 355 00:18:51.079 --> 00:18:54.680 enclosure that hasn't been cleaned. It hung in one section 356 00:18:54.759 --> 00:18:57.640 of trail, maybe thirty meters long, and it was gone 357 00:18:57.720 --> 00:19:01.079 as suddenly as it started. And then in the last 358 00:19:01.119 --> 00:19:04.400 hour of light, on the switchback above bam Beyond, Lynn 359 00:19:04.440 --> 00:19:07.440 saw it. It was standing in arrow bamboo on the 360 00:19:07.519 --> 00:19:10.480 uphill side of the trail, about twenty meters from her, 361 00:19:10.759 --> 00:19:12.920 and it was already looking at her when she saw it. 362 00:19:13.559 --> 00:19:14.759 Her description is short. 363 00:19:15.319 --> 00:19:19.000 She saw a head, shoulders, chest, and one arm. The 364 00:19:19.079 --> 00:19:23.119 rest was in bamboo. The hair was reddish brown, darker 365 00:19:23.160 --> 00:19:25.799 at the shoulders, and long enough on the upper arm 366 00:19:25.839 --> 00:19:29.079 that it moved. The face was flatter than a monkey's 367 00:19:29.119 --> 00:19:32.720 and darker than the body hair. It didn't have a snout. 368 00:19:33.000 --> 00:19:35.119 She said the shoulders were the thing that broke her, 369 00:19:35.559 --> 00:19:37.640 that the width of them across the top made no 370 00:19:37.759 --> 00:19:40.960 sense next to the bamboo stems she used for scale, 371 00:19:41.039 --> 00:19:44.279 and she'd been measuring bamboo for two years. Ping was 372 00:19:44.319 --> 00:19:46.440 fifteen meters ahead of her on the trail and never 373 00:19:46.480 --> 00:19:50.079 turned around. Lyn didn't call out to him. She stood 374 00:19:50.079 --> 00:19:52.799 still for a few seconds, and the animal disappeared back 375 00:19:52.839 --> 00:19:55.559 into the bamboo. She caught up to Ping and told 376 00:19:55.640 --> 00:19:58.440 him what she'd seen. He didn't say anything for a while, 377 00:19:58.880 --> 00:20:02.279 then he said they should walk faster. They were staying 378 00:20:02.319 --> 00:20:04.519 that week in a small field station on the mountain, 379 00:20:05.039 --> 00:20:08.400 a concrete block building with two rooms, a metal door 380 00:20:08.720 --> 00:20:13.240 and shuttered windows used by forestry staff and researchers. There 381 00:20:13.279 --> 00:20:15.720 was no one else up there. That night, they ate, 382 00:20:16.200 --> 00:20:18.839 They rode up their data sheets. They argued about what 383 00:20:18.880 --> 00:20:22.400 she'd seen, and Ping went to sleep around ten. At 384 00:20:22.400 --> 00:20:25.599 some point after midnight, something started walking around the building. 385 00:20:26.359 --> 00:20:27.839 Lynn was awake for all of it. 386 00:20:28.400 --> 00:20:28.759 She said. 387 00:20:28.759 --> 00:20:30.880 The first circuit was slow, and she assumed it was 388 00:20:30.920 --> 00:20:34.680 a bore because wild boar are everywhere in Chinongja, and 389 00:20:34.720 --> 00:20:37.640 they'll come to any place that smells of food. The 390 00:20:37.640 --> 00:20:41.279 second circuit was slower. On the third, it stopped at 391 00:20:41.279 --> 00:20:44.079 the shuttered window on the north wall, which was about 392 00:20:44.079 --> 00:20:47.359 a meter from her head, and it stayed there. She 393 00:20:47.400 --> 00:20:49.359 could hear it breathing, she said. 394 00:20:49.400 --> 00:20:50.200 The breaths were. 395 00:20:50.079 --> 00:20:52.519 Long and low, and she could hear the moisture in them, 396 00:20:52.880 --> 00:20:55.839 and that it wasn't panting the way a stressed animal pants. 397 00:20:56.359 --> 00:20:58.720 That it was just standing there, breathing, like a man 398 00:20:58.799 --> 00:21:02.640 resting after a climb. Then something pressed against the shutter, 399 00:21:03.160 --> 00:21:06.000 not a blow, a steady push that made the metal 400 00:21:06.000 --> 00:21:09.920 bow inward and creak, held for several seconds, then released. 401 00:21:10.759 --> 00:21:13.680