Speaker 1: Now one of your pudding. I got a string going
Speaker 1: on here, something just cause my dog. Something killed your dog,
Speaker 1: my dog. We're flying through the air over the tree.
Speaker 1: I don't know how it did it, Okay, Damn, I'm
Speaker 1: really confused. All I saw was my dog coming over
Speaker 1: the fence and he was dead. And once you hit
Speaker 1: the ground like, I didn't see any cars. All I
Speaker 1: saw was my dog coming over the fence. Sat, what
Speaker 1: are you putting? We got some wonder or something crawling
Speaker 1: around out here? Did you see what it was? Or
Speaker 1: was it was? Standing enough? I'm out here looking through
Speaker 1: the window now and I don't see anything. I don't
Speaker 1: want to go outside. Jesus Quice, you better hello, get
Speaker 1: somebody out here. Quent on out there. I thought of
Speaker 1: a bit of about text forty nine. I don't know.
Speaker 1: Easy him out there. Yeah, I'm right head.
Speaker 2: Oh hey, greetings, thanks for joining me. Is fred Alaska.
Speaker 2: What I wanted to share with you today. This guy,
Speaker 2: his name is Michael Hollister. He used to live in
Speaker 2: Alaska up until roughly a decade ago. This experience is
Speaker 2: and why he left Alaska, but it was his last
Speaker 2: hunting experience. He loved to hunt black bear. He liked
Speaker 2: to get himself a barry bear bears that have been
Speaker 2: on a barry patch for a week, So it's his thing.
Speaker 2: I'm not a big fan of bear meat any scavenger really,
Speaker 2: but to each his own, no judgment there. He was
Speaker 2: doing a DIY do it yourself bear hunt across catch
Speaker 2: Mac Bay in the Kenai Mountains. This incident happened about
Speaker 2: fifteen years ago. Roughly. Michael is in his seventies now
Speaker 2: and he's wanting to get certain things in his life
Speaker 2: off his chest. He reached out a while back and
Speaker 2: we had some hard time getting coordinated on getting a
Speaker 2: telephonic interview. He had a stroke about five years ago.
Speaker 2: He wanted to do an interview, and we attempted a
Speaker 2: couple of times, but his speech just wasn't conducive to
Speaker 2: a very good interview. I appreciate his efforts, and so
Speaker 2: we'll handle it this way. Understand where this guy went
Speaker 2: black bear hunting, and it was unaware to him for
Speaker 2: many years. Harry Man Bigfoot wasn't in his wheelhouse up
Speaker 2: until these days. This area would be northeast to port Lock,
Speaker 2: not very far. I would be willing to bet that
Speaker 2: couple of these creatures in this incident were probably from
Speaker 2: the same area where the historical thing in Port Lock happened.
Speaker 2: So what makes this different is it's not just your
Speaker 2: run of the mill Harryman's scream personal. So let's just
Speaker 2: get into it. Let me explain to you what was
Speaker 2: going on. But he was in day three of his hunt.
Speaker 2: He had seen a couple black bears, none that he
Speaker 2: felt were worthy of taking, so he held his shots
Speaker 2: and just decided he's gonna wait for the one he
Speaker 2: wanted to get, the good one. So he's on basically
Speaker 2: an alpine slope going along to berry patches, trying to
Speaker 2: pick out a black bear at a distance and then
Speaker 2: spot in stock do his thing. So he's on this
Speaker 2: particular ridge, and this would be somewhere outside of Port Graham.
Speaker 2: I'm sure he's going along. He hears slope plane off
Speaker 2: in the distance, which is not uncommon, especially in Alaska.
Speaker 2: So he's just listening to the hum of the plane
Speaker 2: as he's glassing. He's looking for this bear. He decides,
Speaker 2: I'm gonna go over this next little ridge and I'm
Speaker 2: gonna sit in this little saddle that he knew of
Speaker 2: in between these two little ridges. His little elevated saddle.
Speaker 2: It's got a dip in it, and he's just gonna
Speaker 2: nestle down there and potentially camp there and catch something.
Speaker 2: First thing morning just below him in this meadow where
Speaker 2: all these berries were, So he starts working his way
Speaker 2: up there. It's getting on into dusk, and so he
Speaker 2: knows he needs to get to it. Now. He's not
Speaker 2: totally above tree line, he's just almost at tree line
Speaker 2: elevation wise. So as he's going along, he's getting a
Speaker 2: little winded, and he decides, I'm going to take a
Speaker 2: break right here for a minute. I got time to
Speaker 2: get to where I know I'm going and be good
Speaker 2: to go. He wasn't planning any fire or anything like.
Speaker 2: That's all he had to do is roll out his
Speaker 2: sleeping bag do his thing. So he gets up, sits
Speaker 2: down in this area where he got up to, not
Speaker 2: literally stood up or anything. He gets to this area
Speaker 2: where he's going to take his break. He's sitting on
Speaker 2: this mound or tundra. So he sits down and he's
Speaker 2: sitting there. It's before dusk, it's getting dark. Everything is silhouetted,
Speaker 2: and he has approximately he guesstimated about eighty yards till
Speaker 2: the tree line break and then it's just all it's
Speaker 2: almost fjord like. You got to understand the terrain. If
Speaker 2: you look at the Kenai Mountains you can see what
Speaker 2: I'm talking about. There's some little valleys in there and stuff,
Speaker 2: but once you get to the base of the mountain,
Speaker 2: they're fjord like. They just jettison straight up. So he's
Speaker 2: sitting there and he's trying to figure out what that
Speaker 2: sound is. He's hearing this sound, and it's the direction
Speaker 2: he's facing is I guess it would be due east.
Speaker 2: He's facing due east where he was sitting, it would
Speaker 2: be off to his left hand side. He's hearing movement
Speaker 2: in the trees between him and the end of the
Speaker 2: tree line on the alpine level, and so he's really
Speaker 2: curious about this noise. He's thinking, Oh, I wonder if
Speaker 2: the black bear was above me and maybe stalking me
Speaker 2: as I was trying to stalk it. So he thought
Speaker 2: it was comical that, oh Jesus is going to be
Speaker 2: a story to tell people where I'm stalking a bear,
Speaker 2: but yet the bears ends up stalking me kind of thing.
Speaker 2: So he's just kind of chuckles to himself about the
Speaker 2: potential situation he's in now. As Michael's sitting there, he
Speaker 2: decides he's gonna eat one of his granola bars, and
Speaker 2: he's doing it intentionally, hoping that the rapper sound and
Speaker 2: the smell will entice this bear to show itself. Seven
Speaker 2: millimeter mag rifle. He wasn't worried about needing anything else.
Speaker 2: He gets halfway done with this granola bar and he's
Speaker 2: trying to ignore the noises off to his left hand side.
Speaker 2: He's got the rifle right where he can easily grab it.
Speaker 2: He's in a spot where he has time to react.
Speaker 2: He's confident in what he's doing, very confident. Now this
Speaker 2: noise sounds like he's coming closer and closer, and then
Speaker 2: he realizes it's more like a pacing, and he starts
Speaker 2: thinking he's had never known a bear to re paste
Speaker 2: like that. They'll usually circle around windy or something, try
Speaker 2: to get eyes on you see if your potential prayer
Speaker 2: or not. So he decides, I'm going to go straight
Speaker 2: at this bear, flush it out. If it breaks the
Speaker 2: tree line, it's going to be down in an open
Speaker 2: metal I can at least get a shot on it. Maybe,
Speaker 2: So he rethinks it because of it getting dark, and
Speaker 2: he doesn't want to deal with shooting in that kind
Speaker 2: of light, so he reevaluates on the flang goes, I'm
Speaker 2: gonna stop trying to flush this, I'm gonna go back down,
Speaker 2: and I'm gonna continue to my camp. He totally rethinks
Speaker 2: it as he was moving, so he gets up to
Speaker 2: go and then changes his mind. After a couple steps,
Speaker 2: rethinks it, thinks better of it, grabs his pack, slings it,
Speaker 2: takes his rifle, and he starts going to where he
Speaker 2: knows he's going to camp. He gets about from what
Speaker 2: he said about eight steps into this journey to where
Speaker 2: he guestimated he was within a quarter to half mile
Speaker 2: of where this little bench saddled spot is that he
Speaker 2: was going to be camping out on. So he determines
Speaker 2: can get there in probably twenty thirty minutes. So I'm
Speaker 2: gonna pace myself because he just started and he felt
Speaker 2: himself trying to rush, so he wanted to calm down,
Speaker 2: lower his energy level a little bit, and gain focus.
Speaker 2: He said, what was weird is that eight steps in
Speaker 2: or whatever, he felt overwhelmingly watched. He felt like he
Speaker 2: was being watched, so he was taking it as bear's
Speaker 2: got eyes on me, let me calm him down, so
Speaker 2: if something happens, I'm not all worked up. But as
Speaker 2: he's going along, he's getting more and more anxious. The
Speaker 2: movement's continuing. The pacing had stopped after he stood up
Speaker 2: and started moving, and then it's basically pacing him, but
Speaker 2: off behind him, just a little ways off on his left,
Speaker 2: always out of view, but back behind him. So he's
Speaker 2: really nervous about having something behind him behind his direction.
Speaker 2: So he's slowing down and hopes that it catches up
Speaker 2: to him, parallels him, so that way he can at
Speaker 2: least not have to worry about looking directly behind him
Speaker 2: or have something behind him. So as he's going along,
Speaker 2: this movement continues, and it does. It does catch up
Speaker 2: when he slows down, but it parallels him. There's no
Speaker 2: other bear like behavior to this right, so he's really
Speaker 2: thrown off at what's going on. It's getting darker. He
Speaker 2: finds himself checking to make sure he's got around in
Speaker 2: the chamber. Even though he's a discipline hunter, he doesn't
Speaker 2: like making click noises out in the fields. He knows
Speaker 2: there's a round in that chamber. He said he was
Speaker 2: feeling so uneasy, his skin was crawling. Out of all
Speaker 2: the years, which are very many bear hunting, brown, black, whatever,
Speaker 2: he never felt this way. So he felt out of place.
Speaker 2: He felt like he didn't belong there, and he felt
Speaker 2: very nervous about the situation he was in. He continues on.
Speaker 2: He reaches this thicker wooded area and it's just darkness
Speaker 2: with the light skyline going into dusk. So he decides, man,
Speaker 2: I don't want to be going through these dark trees.
Speaker 2: Even though they're small, they're not very big. They're a
Speaker 2: little thick here, little sparseer over here. He's trying to
Speaker 2: evaluate the best plan of accident. So he says, you
Speaker 2: know what, I'm gonna Instead of camping up on that
Speaker 2: saddle where I wanted to, I'm gonna go straight down
Speaker 2: cross this upper alpine meadow of these berry patches and
Speaker 2: camp down a tree line down further down. So he
Speaker 2: makes up his mind and he starts creating distance between
Speaker 2: him and this noise. Now, as he's creating this distance,
Speaker 2: he's in open now and he's hearing movement up behind him.
Speaker 2: It's getting in the dark because he's moving slow. He's
Speaker 2: very methodical, he said in his twenty twenty hindsight, he
Speaker 2: thought maybe subconsciously he was trying to draw whatever it
Speaker 2: was out. He gets about half the distance to where
Speaker 2: he wants to set up camp instead, and he said
Speaker 2: it was approximately three hundred yards that he has moved
Speaker 2: away from where he was eating a snack. There are
Speaker 2: some broken trees, not broken, but broken up areas of trees.
Speaker 2: There's a small little patch here, a small little patch
Speaker 2: over there, so it was sparse. Once he cleared the
Speaker 2: area coming down into the alpine metal, he gets out
Speaker 2: into this open area and immediately he's shaking. He wasn't cold,
Speaker 2: he felt overwhelmingly nervous. So he decides he's going to
Speaker 2: take a knee and look up and see what's causing this.
Speaker 2: So he does so. He takes a knee, and he
Speaker 2: looks back up, and he said he saw dark movement.
Speaker 2: It was hard to make out, but whatever it was
Speaker 2: a lot bigger than any black bear he ever seen.
Speaker 2: But it was still pitch black. So he figures, okay,
Speaker 2: it's the silhouette of a brown bear. It's just in
Speaker 2: the shade. It's in the dark trees. So I obviously
Speaker 2: I'm not gonna I'm not after a brown bear. So
Speaker 2: he decides, thinking about a brown bear, he's just going
Speaker 2: to continue further on down, not camp where he was
Speaker 2: gonna the second time, but then pick a different spot
Speaker 2: further down in the valley. So he's debating himself every movement. Now,
Speaker 2: should I just continue going straight? Should I break my
Speaker 2: line of walking? Should I zig left and then zig
Speaker 2: back right and see if I could draw this thing out?
Speaker 2: He wanted to first of all, make sure what he
Speaker 2: potentially might be shooting at, and just to find out
Speaker 2: what he might be shooting at right. So he's got
Speaker 2: all these things he's debating himself in his mind. So
Speaker 2: he decides, I'm gonna zigzag. So he starts zigzagging a
Speaker 2: little bit, slow down, speed up, try to be sporadic,
Speaker 2: trying to invoke some kind of reaction from whatever it
Speaker 2: is up the hill from. As he's doing, he notices
Speaker 2: a weird sound, so he's trying to place what is
Speaker 2: this weird. It was like a weird kind of hum,
Speaker 2: a weird kind of motor noise, but it was almost muffled.
Speaker 2: It was almost distorted in a weird way, and he
Speaker 2: couldn't figure it out. So he's looking a round and
Speaker 2: as he's panning to the left of where he last
Speaker 2: saw this dark figure, he notices a black helicopter above
Speaker 2: the tree line, and he's astonished. He's totally blown away.
Speaker 2: This helicopter should be making a lot more noise at
Speaker 2: that distance. It should be damn near deafening how close
Speaker 2: it was, but it wasn't. It was just a weird noise.
Speaker 2: He couldn't make out. This helicopter had no lights on whatsoever, none,
Speaker 2: no flashing strobes, no safety strobes or none of that.
Speaker 2: It was totally blacked out. He could just see it
Speaker 2: above the trees, and it was a perfect silhouette of that.
Speaker 2: He didn't know the exact make of the helicopter. He
Speaker 2: just said military like. So that really threw him off,
Speaker 2: and he's I'm not breaking any laws. I have my permit,
Speaker 2: I have my tag. I'm totally legit. So he decides,
Speaker 2: whatever's going on, I'm just gonna continue minding my business
Speaker 2: because I have nothing to do with those guys. He
Speaker 2: goes on. He ends up things quiet down and stuff.
Speaker 2: Once he gets further down into this valley, and he
Speaker 2: finds a little outcropping of trees and decides that's the
Speaker 2: spot I'm going to camp. Well, he gets over to
Speaker 2: it and he's still washing way up the ridge now
Speaker 2: because he created quite a distance, damn near a mile,
Speaker 2: and it was well on to get in dark. He
Speaker 2: heard that weird sound fade away. No sooner than the
Speaker 2: weird sound faded away, he heard a large crashing boong
Speaker 2: bang sound up the slope where he last saw what
Speaker 2: he thought was a brown bear, silhouetted in the darkness.
Speaker 2: He did not like the feeling he got when he
Speaker 2: heard those noises, the crashing and the breaking. Michael said
Speaker 2: that he wished there was more daylight. He would have
Speaker 2: just hiked out right then. He felt overwhelmingly compelled to
Speaker 2: get out of there, so he decides he already knew
Speaker 2: within himself he wasn't gonna be able to fall asleep.
Speaker 2: So what he does is he decides he's going to
Speaker 2: play a counting game and some other mind games just
Speaker 2: to keep himself from slowly dozing off from being tired.
Speaker 2: At this point, he's an older guy. He's been hiking. Yeah,
Speaker 2: he's been at this for a couple of days already,
Speaker 2: and he's just it wears on somebody, even someone young
Speaker 2: and fitpaking about hiking up and down the mountains a
Speaker 2: few times over a course of a couple of days.
Speaker 2: It's gonna wear your ass out. I don't care who
Speaker 2: you are. So he decides, I'm just gonna do these things.
Speaker 2: I'm gonna have an open line of sight. He had flashlights,
Speaker 2: he had plenty of batteries, but he preferred not to
Speaker 2: use him unless he had to. So, as he's debating
Speaker 2: on flashlighting, a sound he's been hearing that sounds like
Speaker 2: he's getting closer and closer, he's, man, let me hold
Speaker 2: off before I flash this thing with the flashlight ruin
Speaker 2: my night vision temporarily, and see if it comes closer.
Speaker 2: If it comes closer, I'm gonna beam it and potentially
Speaker 2: have to shoot this bear if it's showing any sign
Speaker 2: of aggression or not going away. I'm just gonna end
Speaker 2: this crap and shoot this bear and stay tuned for
Speaker 2: more sasquatch out to see. We'll be right back after
Speaker 2: these messages. So the noise continues. He said his level
Speaker 2: of unwarranted fear was just rising by the minute. He
Speaker 2: felt like there's this overwhelming fear pressure on him, and
Speaker 2: it just seems so weird because he had never felt
Speaker 2: that before. He had been intense situations with brown bears,
Speaker 2: black bears and whatnot. He couldn't understand and wrap his
Speaker 2: mind around why he was feeling this way. So he decides,
Speaker 2: all right, he takes the safety off his rifle and
Speaker 2: he's kind of got it cop style, got the flashlight
Speaker 2: and resting the stock of the gun over his wrist,
Speaker 2: and he didn't like doing that. He didn't have a
Speaker 2: better way at the moment. He just thought, I'm going
Speaker 2: to beam whatever it is going to see the light,
Speaker 2: get the hell out of dodge. It'll realize I'm human
Speaker 2: and not prey. This particular flashlight he had was a
Speaker 2: Surefire weapons style light nine hundred lumen, pretty bright, but
Speaker 2: the batteries didn't last too long. So what he does
Speaker 2: is he lights up the area in which he hears
Speaker 2: this noise and he gets eye shine back. But the
Speaker 2: eye shine he gets back is further away than he
Speaker 2: thought it was, and he thought it was two animals
Speaker 2: because of how quickly he hit the light. He thought
Speaker 2: the eye shine the distance between the eye shine was
Speaker 2: too far to be just one animal. He thought maybe two,
Speaker 2: one looking out from one shrub, one looking out from
Speaker 2: another shrub, and that's why he was seeing the two
Speaker 2: eye shine. He was trying to wrap his mind around
Speaker 2: that big of eye shine that far apart. It shouldn't be.
Speaker 2: He kills the light and he starts contemplating. He's, okay,
Speaker 2: there's two things. So in his mind he's thinking, there's
Speaker 2: two things at this moment. So he goes, okay, let
Speaker 2: me let him come in closer. Let's see if they
Speaker 2: leave or if they coming closer after shine a light
Speaker 2: on them. He sits there, he said, uncomfortably, for about
Speaker 2: an hour until he hears movement again. And so he
Speaker 2: stays calm, he stays disciplined, and he waits till this
Speaker 2: noise is what he's assuming is in a clearing between
Speaker 2: where he had seen the eye shine versus where he's at.
Speaker 2: So as soon as he feels confident that this noise
Speaker 2: is indeed had split the difference heat beams again, he
Speaker 2: understands why it was such wide eyeshine. It was a
Speaker 2: hairy man and it was pitch black. He said. It
Speaker 2: had a very weird, milky gray kind of complexion to it.
Speaker 2: He said he looked at it for a brief moment
Speaker 2: he saw the eye shine he saw this thing look
Speaker 2: like it was squatted down, which was still really big
Speaker 2: at the distance right. So immediately he's what the hell
Speaker 2: and he shoots around off, not directly at it, but
Speaker 2: just pops around off to try to scare this thing off.
Speaker 2: It worked, the thing took off to his left, and
Speaker 2: he heard it for quite a while. So a little
Speaker 2: while after this happens, he's panic stricken. He doesn't know
Speaker 2: what he saw, he doesn't know what the hell he's
Speaker 2: gonna do, and he decides, I'm not sitting right here.
Speaker 2: I'm gonna move further down to where this river was
Speaker 2: and be over there by the river. If I got
Speaker 2: to escape, I'll jump into the river, do whatever I
Speaker 2: gotta do. I don't know what the hell that thing is, right,
Speaker 2: because again he had no reference points. He had never
Speaker 2: heard of the Portlock mysteries and all that kind of shit,
Speaker 2: which a lot of people haven't. He's sitting there and
Speaker 2: as he's going along, he's replaying what has happened. And
Speaker 2: trust me, he's moving along. He's not just do It's
Speaker 2: not a walk in the park. I asked him, I
Speaker 2: was like, when you saw it with the flashlight, what
Speaker 2: were your feelings? When you saw it, he said. It
Speaker 2: was in a position of a linebacker on a line
Speaker 2: of scrimmage, getting ready to rush a passer. Fair enough,
Speaker 2: And I asked him, when you saw it, what exactly
Speaker 2: did you see? And again he just explained. And the
Speaker 2: skin on the face looked like a milky off gray,
Speaker 2: he said, almost like a birch color. And the eyes
Speaker 2: were eyeshine, of course, and the hair looked to be
Speaker 2: pitch black, but it looked almost mangy. His light was
Speaker 2: bright enough to break through the coarseness of the hair
Speaker 2: and see the skin underneath. He said, it wasn't mangy,
Speaker 2: but it wasn't a bear, it wasn't a man. And
Speaker 2: it took off running right after he popped the shot.
Speaker 2: So he gets down closer to this river. As he's
Speaker 2: sitting there, he's borderline terrified. He heard it run off,
Speaker 2: but again he doesn't know what it is. At this point,
Speaker 2: he's freaking out, and so he decides, all right, I'm
Speaker 2: just gonna hunker down. He got himself into a cluster
Speaker 2: of trees to where something that big would make a
Speaker 2: lot of noise coming up behind him. So he had
Speaker 2: an open line of fire in front of him to
Speaker 2: back into a corner. Basically, he didn't like the feeling,
Speaker 2: but that's what he felt he could do in the moment,
Speaker 2: he admitted himself. The blacksperus and shit behind him were
Speaker 2: not much of a protection, but it was better than
Speaker 2: just open air. He puts another round into his rifle
Speaker 2: as he's sitting here, and he's really worried about what's
Speaker 2: going to come of this situation. Next day comes, he
Speaker 2: goes off a little bit just before sunrise. There was
Speaker 2: no other noises or anything, and as he's waking up,
Speaker 2: he feels an overwhelming sense of peace. Low, that was
Speaker 2: weird what I dealt with, But I think I'm okay.
Speaker 2: And as he's sitting there, he rubbing his eyes, he's
Speaker 2: eating another granola bar and he notices a very nice
Speaker 2: black bear off in the distance eating berries, and he's perfect,
Speaker 2: that's a good sized boar. It's eating berries, perfect criteria.
Speaker 2: That's what I want. I'm gonna stalk this bear. So
Speaker 2: he puts the night before out of his mind as
Speaker 2: much as he could. He said, he kept always looking around,
Speaker 2: almost to the point of it was ruining his hunt. Again.
Speaker 2: He had no reference. He was still in shock. His words,
Speaker 2: not mine, he said. If I had been in my
Speaker 2: right mind, i'd have already been booking it out of there.
Speaker 2: I saw that bear. Nothing really happened with that. Whatever
Speaker 2: it was his words, not mine, whatever that was that
Speaker 2: came in on me, I'm gonna do my thing. I
Speaker 2: got plenty of daylight now, I can get my bear
Speaker 2: that I want, and I can get back to the coast,
Speaker 2: get back across towards Homer. So he makes up his mind.
Speaker 2: A resilient guy. Setting his waist, he starts stalking the bear,
Speaker 2: and he's at a disadvantage. It's up above him. The
Speaker 2: wind ain't the best. It's like variable. Sometimes it's blowing
Speaker 2: in his face. Sometimes he feels it blowing past him.
Speaker 2: He hadn't been winded. So he's just slowly, methodically making
Speaker 2: his way. And that this is an open train now,
Speaker 2: so he's very slow at doing what he's doing. He
Speaker 2: gets within three hundred and fifty yards of this bear,
Speaker 2: and as he's doing so, he makes his shot kill shot.
Speaker 2: Drops it right after he does the kill shot, though
Speaker 2: he hears he said it's within moments he shot the bear.
Speaker 2: It tumbled down. It was a good shot. It riled
Speaker 2: around a little bit and just death throws it was done.
Speaker 2: So he stands up. He feels accomplished. He's like, yes,
Speaker 2: I got I came for what I wanted. Looks like
Speaker 2: a nice rug on it. I got plenty of meat.
Speaker 2: He wasn't necessarily there as a trophy hunter. He was
Speaker 2: there to get himself what he liked, which was that
Speaker 2: type of bear meat. So he starts slowly making his
Speaker 2: way up to it, just to make sure it's not
Speaker 2: going to play possiblely going to jump up and rush
Speaker 2: him or anything like that. Of course, he's been around.
Speaker 2: After he closed about half the distance, he starts hearing
Speaker 2: this weird noise. It was the same noise he had
Speaker 2: heard the night before when he saw that blacked out helicopter.
Speaker 2: He's looking around for this noise and he's not seeing
Speaker 2: where it's coming from. So he's really thrown off, and
Speaker 2: he's like, I just need to get my bear meat
Speaker 2: and get the hell out of here. So he goes
Speaker 2: and he guts the bear. As he's doing so, he
Speaker 2: said he was so nervous he couldn't stay focused on
Speaker 2: the job at hand, right, He couldn't stay focused on
Speaker 2: what he was doing as he was sitting there. He
Speaker 2: got it gutted, and he started partially taking the hide
Speaker 2: off so he could bag the quarters into these game bags.
Speaker 2: He's got his packboard. He estimated the bear was probably
Speaker 2: two hundred and seventy five pounds not dressed out, So
Speaker 2: once it was dressed out, he estimated one hundred and
Speaker 2: fifty hundred and seventy pounds roughly. And so he's slowly
Speaker 2: getting this meat packed onto his packboard, pack right, and
Speaker 2: he's readjusting things, and he's getting things right so when
Speaker 2: he loads up he can manage make his way out.
Speaker 2: As he's doing, he kept getting interrupted by this strange
Speaker 2: thought of run right. He just kept getting this thought run,
Speaker 2: you gotta run now, And so it's startling him. It's
Speaker 2: not making him feel good. He doesn't know why he's
Speaker 2: feeling that way outside of the night before thing, but
Speaker 2: he never felt like he had to just up and run,
Speaker 2: especially with nothing around in the middle of the day.
Speaker 2: So he tries to calm himself down. He decides, I'm
Speaker 2: going to take a break from what I'm doing and
Speaker 2: I'm gonna make myself some instant coffee. I'm gonna sit
Speaker 2: on some coffee and try to figure out what the
Speaker 2: hell is going on because he just felt all this
Speaker 2: pressure a flea run go. So as he's doing so,
Speaker 2: he got a cup of coffee in him. It was taste,
Speaker 2: even though his instant. He really wanted some coffee, so
Speaker 2: he made some more. And as he's in the process
Speaker 2: of making that second cup, he notices back beyond the
Speaker 2: gut pile and the black bear at the upper tree line,
Speaker 2: he sees movement and he's what is this And he
Speaker 2: takes a look and it's another bear. It was a
Speaker 2: brown bear and it just was going on about its way,
Speaker 2: sniffing the air and stuff, and he was like, ah shit,
Speaker 2: this bear is gonna wind my kill. It heard the
Speaker 2: gun shot, it's coming to my gun shot. It's winded
Speaker 2: my kill, and it's just tracking down my bear. I'm
Speaker 2: gonna have to fight this bear off to keep this bear.
Speaker 2: So he decides he wasn't quite done with everything he
Speaker 2: wanted to do, dressing out this bear and getting on
Speaker 2: the packboard, but he didn't want to fight a bear
Speaker 2: for his prize. So he decides, all right, let me
Speaker 2: take what I got, let me retreat back, make sure
Speaker 2: this brown bear the area I don't want to have
Speaker 2: two bears down, especially for nothing. If the bear comes in,
Speaker 2: he can have what I didn't get. So he's making
Speaker 2: this plan the whole time, feeling I gotta go. Something's
Speaker 2: not right. He watches the brown bear. It goes off.
Speaker 2: He had backed away from the kill a little further.
Speaker 2: The bear didn't win him. It didn't appear at all.
Speaker 2: It continued down to where he was the night before.
Speaker 2: The little higher was slowly working his way up, and
Speaker 2: it was just following the outpline tree line, the upper
Speaker 2: tree line going along, and he just watched it until
Speaker 2: it was quite a distance away. He calms down, and
Speaker 2: he was just about to go and start finished dressing
Speaker 2: out this bear, and there wasn't much left to do
Speaker 2: at that point. He stands up. He grabs his knife
Speaker 2: kit and whatever he's trailed, his hands off again, just
Speaker 2: keeping the sight as clean as possible, To keep all
Speaker 2: the bloody could off of himself. He would take one
Speaker 2: of the game bags and drape it over his legs
Speaker 2: so he wasn't getting blood all over his pants. And
Speaker 2: I'd removed his shirt, the long sleeve one just so
Speaker 2: he had a T shirt on so he could just
Speaker 2: try to cover his bases because he was alone. He
Speaker 2: didn't want to be smelling like fresh blood. So he
Speaker 2: starts this process. As he's doing so, he hears this
Speaker 2: wallering coming from the direction the bear was at right
Speaker 2: the brown bear way off in the distance. He sees
Speaker 2: this brown bear run in a half circle, crash up
Speaker 2: into the trees, running and then turns, comes halfway down
Speaker 2: until it's about parallel with him in elevation, and turns
Speaker 2: and bee line straight towards him. Michael said he never
Speaker 2: was scared of a charging bear ever until this point.
Speaker 2: And he said the reason he got scared and this
Speaker 2: bear was at a distance still, but it's not stopped.
Speaker 2: It sees through Mike is going. It's go button was pushed,
Speaker 2: so he backs out of the way. He said what
Speaker 2: scared him was the bear looked scared, and he said
Speaker 2: it was about maybe a six hundred pounds soal the
Speaker 2: bear looked scared, and I was like, at that distance,
Speaker 2: how could you tell? He goes. It's haunches weren't gristled up,
Speaker 2: it wasn't in a charging er kind of thing. It
Speaker 2: was going to get out of my way kind of mode.
Speaker 2: He said, he just sensed this bear was fleeing, so
Speaker 2: he backed away, and he figured, Okay, once it gets
Speaker 2: past me, it's gonna smell my kill and then go
Speaker 2: and get on the gut pile or something. He doesn't
Speaker 2: know what spooked a bear, but he figures that's what's
Speaker 2: going to go down. He continues to back away, meanwhile
Speaker 2: dragon his stuff with him, making sure he's trying not
Speaker 2: to leave anything behind. He said he left a couple
Speaker 2: of game bags that were draped over him. He immediately
Speaker 2: grabbed his hoodie and his gear and was backing away
Speaker 2: because this bear was still coming and it wasn't showing
Speaker 2: any signs of slowing down, and all this is happening
Speaker 2: real fast. Has taken me way more longer to explain
Speaker 2: it to you than how it went down. So he
Speaker 2: backs away and he gets back towards, he said, about
Speaker 2: half the distance to the lower tree line in this metal.
Speaker 2: He squats down and he's, ah, a bear, don't come
Speaker 2: towards me. I don't, and I have two down bears.
Speaker 2: I don't have a tag for a brownie. This bear
Speaker 2: didn't even pay attention to him, just slum went right
Speaker 2: on past, didn't give a shit about his kill, didn't
Speaker 2: care about the fresh blood smelling air. It was gone.
Speaker 2: His attention was on this brown bear running just Holland asked,
Speaker 2: was the damnedest thing he ever seen. He's seen bears run,
Speaker 2: but this, how everything was transpiring was just to beyond
Speaker 2: craziness to him. From the night before, the weird helicopter noise,
Speaker 2: just the whole thing. Once his attention stops focusing on
Speaker 2: the bear running away because it was already damn near
Speaker 2: out of sight, his attention goes back to the direction
Speaker 2: the bear had run from, about the area he was
Speaker 2: roughly guestimaning because it was pretty dark. Once he was
Speaker 2: retreating from that upper area, he's guestimating about the same
Speaker 2: area he was. He saw that thing again. That thing
Speaker 2: was standing up, was almost as tall as what he
Speaker 2: guestimated to be like ten foot spruce trees. Right, the
Speaker 2: thing was behind some will alders, some spruce trees, and
Speaker 2: it was still evident that this thing was hulking behind there. Immediately,
Speaker 2: the fear from the night before, all the feelings he's
Speaker 2: been dealing with all day just came to a head
Speaker 2: and he just couldn't take it, he said. He broke down.
Speaker 2: He was sobbing. He had to go that direction. He
Speaker 2: knew he had to go that direction. It's now daytime
Speaker 2: and this thing is obviously beIN scared of the daylight.
Speaker 2: So he steals himself and he goes, all right, I'm
Speaker 2: just going to act like that thing ain't there, and
Speaker 2: I'm going to make my way back where I started.
Speaker 2: He gets up. He said, I felt like a robot.
Speaker 2: He said. Everything I was doing was just one foot
Speaker 2: in front of the other, keeping an eye a pill
Speaker 2: at this thing, bear meat on his pack. He was like,
Speaker 2: hopefully this thing just is going to go for what
Speaker 2: I left behind me, versus mess with me on what
Speaker 2: I got with me. That's what he initially started thinking.
Speaker 2: As he's getting closer, he keeps getting the feeling that, Okay,
Speaker 2: there's a lot of weight in this pack and I'm
Speaker 2: not going to be able to maneuver like I want to.
Speaker 2: So he stopped ups and stay tuned for more sasquatch
Speaker 2: out to sea. We'll be right back after these messages.
Speaker 2: Still keeping an eye, he drops his pack down, which
Speaker 2: isn't light. He's got all this extra weight on there
Speaker 2: packing that meat. So he just starts setting his game
Speaker 2: bags out. He unloads everything, packs everything, back in the
Speaker 2: whole time keeping an eye on this thing. He's hoping
Speaker 2: for something to happen to break this scenario up. A
Speaker 2: plane fly by, something, just something that happened where this
Speaker 2: thing leaves, and he knows what direction it left so
Speaker 2: he can make a solid just go for it. Right
Speaker 2: after he's unloaded, he gets his back packed back together,
Speaker 2: slings it on in this thing. Once he gets the
Speaker 2: backpack on and grabs the rifle. As soon as he
Speaker 2: grabs the rifle and checks it, this thing started swaying
Speaker 2: back and forth where it had been standing the whole time,
Speaker 2: just watching him. He said he couldn't make out it
Speaker 2: was too far to make out facial features, but he
Speaker 2: felt those eyes burning a whole throm So he decides, Okay,
Speaker 2: I got a whole box of AMMO and a half
Speaker 2: box of AMMO. I'm going to boister myself up and
Speaker 2: make a show heading the hell out of here. So
Speaker 2: he gets a handful of rounds in his one hand,
Speaker 2: and as he's walking along, he'll pop a shot, start
Speaker 2: screaming on chamber around poem, shoot another one, and then,
Speaker 2: as he would periodically add a couple more rounds, walk
Speaker 2: one in poem so he's making a big show, a
Speaker 2: lot of noise, walking not directly at it, but directly
Speaker 2: out of there the easiest path he could as he's
Speaker 2: doing so every time, he said, every time he was shooting,
Speaker 2: the sing would do this number and then start the
Speaker 2: swaying faster and faster. He said, it got to a
Speaker 2: point to where it started making a noise, a whooping noise,
Speaker 2: and ripped one of the he said it was about
Speaker 2: eight to nine foot spruce roots and all just directly
Speaker 2: out of the ground and chucked it, not at him,
Speaker 2: just chucked it. He said. It would have been chucked
Speaker 2: off to his right hand side up into the other
Speaker 2: trees and stuff. And this thing started making this display,
Speaker 2: as he called it, loud stomping, the whooping sound. He
Speaker 2: was moving around more, staying in the same general area,
Speaker 2: but more moving around. He felt like it was taking
Speaker 2: what he was doing with the shooting the gun as
Speaker 2: a challenge, and he was answering the challenge. So he
Speaker 2: held off on shooting anymore one of conserve rounds because
Speaker 2: this thing was huge, and for two, he didn't want
Speaker 2: to escalate it. He felt like crap I was trying
Speaker 2: to be bold and all I did was escalate this
Speaker 2: thing's reaction to me. So he's trying to think it out.
Speaker 2: Instead of going the direction he was gonna go, he
Speaker 2: starts veering away a little bit, not to show any fear,
Speaker 2: even though he was scared shitless. He wanted to create distance.
Speaker 2: Smart guy, So he's trying to think logically. He creates
Speaker 2: more and more distance. As he passes where this thing
Speaker 2: is above him, he notices it had calmed and it
Speaker 2: was squatted, and he said the distance had to have
Speaker 2: been under two hundred yards, but he said the way
Speaker 2: it squatted down, it seemed lower than it should be
Speaker 2: compared to how tall it was. He felt it shouldn't
Speaker 2: be squatted so low to the ground. At then he
Speaker 2: took into consideration the perception he's looking uphill. It could
Speaker 2: have been on a little bit of a ledge, And
Speaker 2: then it just looked like it was lower than it
Speaker 2: actually was. Right, So all this stuff's going on with him.
Speaker 2: Michael gets to a point to where the game trail
Speaker 2: breaks into two. The one game trail goes further down
Speaker 2: by the river, but there's a lot more willows and
Speaker 2: alders and stuff, a lot more dense foliage. I have
Speaker 2: a harder line of sight, and then the upper one
Speaker 2: was more open, and he decided to take that one.
Speaker 2: He gets down there and he's looking. This thing is
Speaker 2: still up there, but at a distance now to where
Speaker 2: he felt comfortable. He wasn't all puckered up. His expression was,
Speaker 2: you couldn't have pulled a needle out of my ass
Speaker 2: with a tractor. So he's calming down a bit because
Speaker 2: there's distance and it's daylight. Nothing outside of him escalating
Speaker 2: in his mind things that calm down, So he's just
Speaker 2: keeping it calm. As he's going down this trail, he
Speaker 2: starts hearing this thump sound right, so he's thinking, oh,
Speaker 2: it's that weird helicopter again. He's looking around, and then
Speaker 2: he notices it. It's running down the slope behind him
Speaker 2: into the trees that it's broken up. It's not like
Speaker 2: one unbroken set of trees, but it's on a line
Speaker 2: of trees just offset from the river. So it's like, shit,
Speaker 2: this thing's coming down behind me, and so he decides
Speaker 2: to pick up his pace. He starts moving faster, and
Speaker 2: he's considering, Okay, what do I do if it comes
Speaker 2: in on me. He's pre planning, how am I going
Speaker 2: to place my shots. Where am I going to shoot
Speaker 2: this thing? What am I going to do? He's this
Speaker 2: exit strategy, he's working it out. He said he was
Speaker 2: doing that because it was keeping him from freaking out.
Speaker 2: He said every part of him wanted to run. I
Speaker 2: totally understand that. So he's said he got about two
Speaker 2: hundred yards more and there was no noise. Everything was
Speaker 2: dead quiet. And he said it was the most eerie
Speaker 2: pointing in the whole thing, just because of how quiet
Speaker 2: it was. There was noise when he shot the bear
Speaker 2: and he was gutting and stuff, there was noises. The
Speaker 2: bear coming through, there was noises, and then this happened
Speaker 2: and everything was dead quiet. So it's catching up to
Speaker 2: him how quiet it is. So he said he got
Speaker 2: about two hundred yards further and he's now out in
Speaker 2: this lower meadow in the open, and he's feeling a
Speaker 2: lot more comfortable. The sense of dread is fading, still there,
Speaker 2: but fading. And he said he got about another one
Speaker 2: hundred or so seventy five yards before some more older
Speaker 2: willows and stuff were kicked up in front of him
Speaker 2: along the trail pretty tight, and he didn't like that.
Speaker 2: He didn't want to feel closed in by brush. He
Speaker 2: saw how these things move and how big it was
Speaker 2: and scary and shit he wanted he didn't want to
Speaker 2: feel cornered anymore. So he decides he's gonna leave the
Speaker 2: trail and walk along the tundra and the marsh and
Speaker 2: go around the stand of trees. And from being there before,
Speaker 2: he knew it wasn't overly far distance to just break
Speaker 2: trail and go around the shit. He didn't want to
Speaker 2: feel closed in by the brush, so he does so.
Speaker 2: He breaks trail the whole time, every two seconds. He
Speaker 2: said he was looking behind him, taking a good hard
Speaker 2: look at everything behind him, and he said, once he
Speaker 2: cleared that area and got back onto the trail where
Speaker 2: it was more wide open again, he said he had
Speaker 2: to stop. And he said he sat there. He doesn't
Speaker 2: know how long he sat there, sobbing and crying, him
Speaker 2: being tired, not sleeping, the trauma of what was going on,
Speaker 2: it was all catching up to him. At that point
Speaker 2: he knew he had to stop what he was doing,
Speaker 2: stop the sobbing, snap out of it, and continue moving.
Speaker 2: Before he couldn't move. He felt his body so tired
Speaker 2: and achy that he knew he had to get up
Speaker 2: and go. I asked him, when you were spotting for
Speaker 2: this thing behind you, did you see any signs of whatsoever?
Speaker 2: And he was like, no, After I saw it coming
Speaker 2: down the slope behind me making all that noise and
Speaker 2: everything was dead quiet, that's the last I saw of
Speaker 2: it on this particular trail and stuff. So he continues on,
Speaker 2: and he knows at this one certain junction of a
Speaker 2: couple trails, he knows he's not all that far from
Speaker 2: where he was heading to get the hell out of Dodge.
Speaker 2: As he's moving along, It's funny, I've had conversations with
Speaker 2: people very recently about this real heavy feeling you get
Speaker 2: after these kind of experiences. It's like your muscle tension
Speaker 2: is so high, You're adrenaline dump is so high that
Speaker 2: once you start coming down off of it, it's just
Speaker 2: like a thousand pounds on your back. So once he
Speaker 2: started explaining this process he was going through, I knew
Speaker 2: instantly what he had been dealing with. He continues on,
Speaker 2: but he recognizes he's getting slower and slower, so he decides,
Speaker 2: I'm gonna not stop, but I'm going to dig your
Speaker 2: granola bar out start chewing on this granola bar, and
Speaker 2: as he took the first bite of the granola bar,
Speaker 2: he said, his stomach got so hungry. It had been
Speaker 2: upset and he had been fighting off this hunger pain.
Speaker 2: But once he ate that piece of granola barnew he
Speaker 2: needed a meal, you know what I mean, And he
Speaker 2: knew a meal equal to nap after and he just
Speaker 2: knew he couldn't do it, so he put the granola
Speaker 2: bar away. Continues on down, he said he saw caught
Speaker 2: a glimpse of it one more time at a very
Speaker 2: great distance, just as he was coming down off the
Speaker 2: s knoll about to drop down further down towards where
Speaker 2: he was going to eventually get picked up. He looked
Speaker 2: back up the valley a ways, and he said it
Speaker 2: was several little meadows away, but he saw it moving
Speaker 2: up towards where he had shot the bear and where
Speaker 2: he had ended up leaving the game bags and stuff.
Speaker 2: So he felt confident that it's distracted. It wanted my meat,
Speaker 2: It didn't necessarily want me. I don't know what the
Speaker 2: hell's going on with this helicopter shit. So he held
Speaker 2: onto this for quite a while. He tried to explain
Speaker 2: to a couple of his hunting buddies, and then they
Speaker 2: started teasing them over you eating mushrooms in the meadow
Speaker 2: and just making little jabs, and so he left alone.
Speaker 2: I want to thank Michael for sharing it. A lot
Speaker 2: of these stories, I leave it open ended when I
Speaker 2: say he got out of there. The reason being is
Speaker 2: I don't need to go on for a half hour
Speaker 2: saying he had to wait for a skip to come
Speaker 2: and all that when it's not necessarily relevant to the
Speaker 2: encounter itself. So certain things I omit out of it
Speaker 2: that aren't necessarily detrimental to the overall experience. I want
Speaker 2: to thank Michael very much for reaching out, being patient,
Speaker 2: being willing to attempt a telephonic interview, even with the
Speaker 2: speech impediment he's dealing with from the stroke. I sincerely
Speaker 2: appreciate you, man. I don't thank everyone for joining us here.
Speaker 2: We'll catch you guys on the next one. Did the.
Speaker 1: Game in
Speaker 2: The PA