Speaker 1: Listening to your channel has given me the courage to
Speaker 1: get this off of my chest. It happened in two
Speaker 1: thousand and three. I was living in a small town
Speaker 1: in the central Piedmont of North Carolina. There was a
Speaker 1: modest brick home and a somewhat secluded area and a
Speaker 1: heavily wooded part of Iredale County. My nearest neighbor was
Speaker 1: two hundred yards away through a small patch of pine trees.
Speaker 1: Aside from two corn fields directly across the road, everywhere
Speaker 1: else was a mess of older hardwood trees. White tailed
Speaker 1: deer were abundant the most every evening they would come
Speaker 1: and eat at the edge of the fields. I made
Speaker 1: it a habit to sit on my porch and watch
Speaker 1: the deer before dark whenever I could. Twice I remember
Speaker 1: seeing them getting spooked and scramble across the field after
Speaker 1: hearing an extremely loud sound that I can only describe
Speaker 1: as part moan and part scream. At the time, I
Speaker 1: wondered if the Mountain lions were in this part of
Speaker 1: the country. My neighbor was a few years older than me.
Speaker 1: He lived in a beautiful one hundred year old Victorian
Speaker 1: style farmhouse that was situated on fifteen acres adjacent to
Speaker 1: my land. His name was James. He was ex military,
Speaker 1: having been discharged in nineteen ninety nine. We were pretty
Speaker 1: good friends. When he was away, I'd take care of
Speaker 1: his animals and property, and he'd return the favor. When
Speaker 1: I had to leave town for work. One Saturday afternoon,
Speaker 1: James called and asked if I wanted to do some
Speaker 1: shooting with my new air rifle. Of course, I replied,
Speaker 1: it was early October and the squirrel season was coming up.
Speaker 1: It was five o'clock that Saturday evening when I walked
Speaker 1: over to his house. James had an old barn that
Speaker 1: sat across the road and approximately seventy yards from his porch.
Speaker 1: He hung an old cast iron frying pan from a
Speaker 1: tree that overhung a four wheeler trail beside the barn
Speaker 1: that we normally used for twenty two rifles, but we
Speaker 1: thought it might be fun to use it with the
Speaker 1: air rifle. We dialed in the scope and took turns
Speaker 1: shooting at the frying pan. It proved to be an
Speaker 1: easy task to make it ring pretty loud with each shot.
Speaker 1: I had just made it ding three times in a
Speaker 1: row and had the rifle in my lap. When we
Speaker 1: heard it ding again, well, James looked at me and
Speaker 1: I looked back at him. We were at a loss.
Speaker 1: It dinged two more times and stopped. James took the
Speaker 1: rifle and fired twice, and made it ding twice and
Speaker 1: sat it in his lap. The pan dinged two more times.
Speaker 1: James looked over at the pan in the fading light
Speaker 1: and said, someone's messing with us. He went inside came
Speaker 1: back with a huge battery powered spotlight. He said, let's
Speaker 1: go find out who it is. We crossed the road
Speaker 1: and walked over to where the frying pan was hanging
Speaker 1: at the start of the trail. He shined the light
Speaker 1: into the edge of the woods, but we didn't see
Speaker 1: anything at all. Who's there, he yelled into the darkness.
Speaker 1: Limbs crunched twenty yards to the right of the trail.
Speaker 1: James swung the light toward the sound, and we both
Speaker 1: saw eyes shine that was impossibly large. They were a
Speaker 1: good seven feet from the ground. It was then that
Speaker 1: we heard no. We actually felt a low, menacing growl
Speaker 1: that vibrated through my chest. It was like a jake
Speaker 1: break on an eighteen wheeler, rattling my insides. We looked
Speaker 1: at each other and decided we needed the safety of
Speaker 1: his porch. The next day, James went over to the
Speaker 1: frying pan and found several smooth rocks on the ground
Speaker 1: beneath our target. They had to have come from the creek,
Speaker 1: but the creek was a quarter mile into the woods.
Speaker 1: I'm thinking sasquatch like to take target practice too. I
Speaker 1: lived there until twenty and fourteen, and only once after
Speaker 1: the frying pan incident do I remember hearing a strange,
Speaker 1: laughing type howl one night. I'm sure I'm not the
Speaker 1: only one in North Carolina who has heard these creatures.
Speaker 1: After all these years, I thought I would have been
Speaker 1: able to forget about it, but that bone shaking growl
Speaker 1: is something I guess I'll never forget. I feel better
Speaker 1: for having told it, and thanks for letting me get
Speaker 1: it off my chest. I do a lot of driving
Speaker 1: with my job, and I have two brothers that are
Speaker 1: truck drivers. When I found your channels, I told my
Speaker 1: brothers and we all subscribe. Well, thank you very much.
Speaker 1: I really appreciate that the story I'm about to tell
Speaker 1: you I have kept secret for thirty years. I've never
Speaker 1: shared this with anyone. It's always troubled me, and you'll
Speaker 1: see wine never told anyone. I'm in my mid fifties now,
Speaker 1: But when I was nineteen years old, I lived in
Speaker 1: the mountains of North Carolina. I hunted on public land,
Speaker 1: and I had a place I liked to go that
Speaker 1: was so hard to get to that I've never seen
Speaker 1: anyone else up there. It was several miles from the
Speaker 1: closest parking area, and you had to climb up the
Speaker 1: side of a ridge to get there. The first time
Speaker 1: I went there, the squirrels would hang down from the
Speaker 1: tree limbs, just curious as to what I was. I
Speaker 1: don't think they had ever seen a human before. Once
Speaker 1: at the top, there's a leveled off place where a
Speaker 1: huge oak tree grew and you could see clearly for
Speaker 1: one hundred yards before it got thick with laurel bushes. Again,
Speaker 1: I was up there on a Saturday and I found
Speaker 1: where an old, hollowed out oak had broken off five
Speaker 1: feet above the ground. One side had a huge crack
Speaker 1: running down to the ground. And I got inside and
Speaker 1: even hunkered down, and I could see the open area clearly.
Speaker 1: It was a perfect blind and I was standing in
Speaker 1: this blind watching for deer when I heard a commotion
Speaker 1: coming from the other side of the ridge north of me.
Speaker 1: I squatted down and I watched through the big crack.
Speaker 1: A small dough came over the ridge toward me, but
Speaker 1: I knew immediately something was wrong with her because she
Speaker 1: was dragging her back legs. My first thought was that
Speaker 1: she'd been shot by another hunter and crippled. And then
Speaker 1: I heard something else coming across the ridge, and it
Speaker 1: was not being quiet at all, and I couldn't believe
Speaker 1: what I was seeing. A reddish colored si squatch five
Speaker 1: to six feet tall came across the ridge. I'd never
Speaker 1: seen one of these, and although I was only nineteen
Speaker 1: at the time, I had spent an amazing amount of
Speaker 1: time in the woods. I'd even camped up here with
Speaker 1: no fire or tent. Ever, I had friends who had sightings,
Speaker 1: but I never believed them. I thought they had just
Speaker 1: misinterpreted what they had seen. But here one was right
Speaker 1: in front of me and only sixty yards away. The
Speaker 1: deer was trying to drag herself away, but the squatch
Speaker 1: would grab her and drag her away's back and then
Speaker 1: let her go again. Every time it would grab her,
Speaker 1: she let out. I guess you would call it a
Speaker 1: sort of a scream. It was hard to watch. Then
Speaker 1: the squatch put its foot right on the doe's head,
Speaker 1: and then it looked up into the sky and started laughing.
Speaker 1: Now I know this sounds crazy, but that's what it
Speaker 1: was doing. It was laughing. And then it let go
Speaker 1: of the dough and when she got so far away,
Speaker 1: it dragged her back. And this went on for twenty minutes.
Speaker 1: The more I watched this, the more angry I got.
Speaker 1: This beast was torturing this deer, and he was enjoying it.
Speaker 1: I decided that I'd had enough, and I decided to
Speaker 1: shoot the deer, and if this thing came after me,
Speaker 1: I would put it down as well. And I pulled
Speaker 1: my rifle up and it put its foot on the
Speaker 1: doe's head and it started laughing again. I don't know
Speaker 1: what happened in my thought process, but when I pulled
Speaker 1: the trigger, it was at the squatch, not the deer.
Speaker 1: I put around in its left die and it dropped instantly.
Speaker 1: My honest first thought was, damn, it was a good shot.
Speaker 1: My second thought was I need to reload. I slid
Speaker 1: another round in my seven bag and then I heard
Speaker 1: a freight train coming from the same ridge that the
Speaker 1: dough and squatch had come from. Topping the ridge was
Speaker 1: a huge, nine foot tall monster. She was huge and
Speaker 1: solid black. She stood only for a second before seeing
Speaker 1: what had to be her child. She jumped over to
Speaker 1: the younger one, and she knelt down, and she pushed
Speaker 1: the smaller one and made a kind of cooing noise,
Speaker 1: and then she made a blood curdling roar. Right then
Speaker 1: the dough tried to get up again. She was on
Speaker 1: it in a second, and she picked up the dough
Speaker 1: and started beating her against a nearby tree, like someone
Speaker 1: beating out a rug. I could barely breathe, and I
Speaker 1: sunk lower and lower where I was. This thing was
Speaker 1: throwing a tantrum like no other. She finished with a
Speaker 1: doe who was in no way still alive, and started
Speaker 1: ripping up three to six inch saplings and breaking them
Speaker 1: like toothpicks. After twenty minutes of running back and forth,
Speaker 1: she started to wear down, and she went back to
Speaker 1: the smaller one and laid down beside it, and then
Speaker 1: started what I can only describe is crying. And it's
Speaker 1: one of the saddest things I've ever witnessed. Her moaning
Speaker 1: will haunt me for the rest of my life. She
Speaker 1: picked up her child and went back over the ridge,
Speaker 1: howling with sadness, and as her wails of pain gradually
Speaker 1: faded off in the distance, I got up and I
Speaker 1: left the area. I've never been so scared in my
Speaker 1: life since then, and I've never been back to that area,
Speaker 1: but I do still hunt. I've never shared this because
Speaker 1: I'm ashamed of what I did. I'm certainly not excusing
Speaker 1: my actions, but anyone in my shoes could have done
Speaker 1: the same thing. I'm not saying they would have, but
Speaker 1: they could have. Well that's all I have to say.
Speaker 1: Thanks for reading my story. Keep up the great work.
Speaker 1: We really love the Steve Lilly stories. And he's saying
Speaker 1: he signs the email. In nineteen seventy four, my family
Speaker 1: had an experience with Bigfoot near Marango Caves in Indiana.
Speaker 1: I was only four years old then. I don't remember
Speaker 1: everything about the event, but the family has talked about
Speaker 1: it for years. We lived on her road with all
Speaker 1: our family, and there were several houses lying down this road,
Speaker 1: and we were all kin. My aunt Chloe lived alone
Speaker 1: across the road from us. Her husband had died years earlier,
Speaker 1: and at almost ninety years old, she did pretty good
Speaker 1: for herself. She was a tough old country girl who
Speaker 1: was never afraid to work. She would put in a
Speaker 1: nice garden every year all by herself. Sometimes she needed help,
Speaker 1: and my family was always there when she needed us.
Speaker 1: Late one night, we heard a gunshot from her yard.
Speaker 1: My father ran across to see what was going on.
Speaker 1: On the back porch was Aunt Chloe, with smoke rolling
Speaker 1: out of the shotgun barrel. Aunt Chloe, what are you
Speaker 1: shooting at It's a big hairy man was out here
Speaker 1: eating mightamatis. I never saw so much hair on a man.
Speaker 1: We lived a way out in the country, and with
Speaker 1: our area being inhabited by family, we never saw anyone
Speaker 1: out there who didn't belong or wasn't family. A stranger
Speaker 1: in one of our yards required us to see who
Speaker 1: it was, and people sure didn't walk around our gardens
Speaker 1: at night picking and eating vegetables. My father looked around
Speaker 1: and the garden had been trampled. Some of the tomato
Speaker 1: plants looked bare of fruit. Aunt Chloe wasn't lying or
Speaker 1: imagining this. Something had been there. My father and my
Speaker 1: uncle Red told Aunt Chloe to get inside and lock
Speaker 1: the door. Then they took off in the woods behind
Speaker 1: the house looking for this man. They found a path
Speaker 1: where the man had apparently traveled. It looked like an
Speaker 1: elephant had torn a path behind Aunt Chloe's house. Limbs
Speaker 1: were broken up as high as seven feet, but they
Speaker 1: never found the man. The night finally settled down and
Speaker 1: everyone went back to sleep, but they were on alert
Speaker 1: for a few days. The topic of discussion was about
Speaker 1: the hairy man Aunt Chloe had shot, but as far
Speaker 1: as I know, an event like this never happened again.
Speaker 1: After this, my father watched and read anything in everything
Speaker 1: to do with Bigfoot or other cryptids. I don't remember
Speaker 1: a time when he was not interested in the subject.
Speaker 1: That one event captured my father's imagination for the rest
Speaker 1: of his life. And you know, that's how it goes.
Speaker 1: I mean, we've got a couple of stories just in
Speaker 1: this podcast where people are they see these things and
Speaker 1: they're consumed. This man didn't even see it. He just
Speaker 1: knew that his aunt had shot at one and it
Speaker 1: still consumed him, and he read about it for the
Speaker 1: rest of his life. It fascinates me how these experiences
Speaker 1: really captivate people and set them on a road of
Speaker 1: almost obsession to learn and read about these things. It's
Speaker 1: amazing to me. That's one thing that I've really gathered
Speaker 1: through the three years that I've put these stories together.
Speaker 1: When that dog gets on this trail, it won't get
Speaker 1: off of it, if you know what I mean. In
Speaker 1: the nineteen sixties, the Texas county I was born and
Speaker 1: raised in covered five hundred square miles. We had one
Speaker 1: school for the entire county, and all twelve grades were
Speaker 1: tached buildings connected by the cafeteria. At that time, all
Speaker 1: of the Dallas Fort Worth metroplex had a population of
Speaker 1: one point five million people. The same area now has
Speaker 1: seven point six million people as of twenty eighteen, and
Speaker 1: now I'm thinking it's probably over ten million. Fort Worth
Speaker 1: was the closest large town to us, and it was
Speaker 1: a full day trip. Only once or twice a year
Speaker 1: would we make that trip. We didn't have indoor plumbing
Speaker 1: or running water, and that's how it was for ranchers
Speaker 1: in rural Texas. We lived on a section of land
Speaker 1: that had been in my family since the Texas Revolutionary
Speaker 1: War when it was deeded to my family for participation
Speaker 1: in that war. We owned one square mile of land.
Speaker 1: September of nineteen sixty five was unusually wet. Our property
Speaker 1: bordered the Brazos River and there were several runs in
Speaker 1: creeks that had been flooded for many weeks. It was
Speaker 1: impossible for me to meet up with my closest friend
Speaker 1: that lived nearly a mile away across the past in
Speaker 1: the wooded creek ravines. So one day I finished my
Speaker 1: chores when I got home from school, and I saddled
Speaker 1: up my horse to meet up with Eric in an
Speaker 1: open area between our properties. It was a lowland area
Speaker 1: and it flooded with only modest runoff from the rain.
Speaker 1: It was fenced off to keep our livestock from getting
Speaker 1: into and sinking in the mud. Yes, cows are that stupid.
Speaker 1: I saddled up and was headed to see Eric. When
Speaker 1: I reached their usual meeting point and he wasn't there.
Speaker 1: That was not altogether unusual, due to our chores taking
Speaker 1: longer some days than others. Three gates and forty five
Speaker 1: minutes later, I arrived at his house, where he was
Speaker 1: finishing up work on a tractor with his father. It
Speaker 1: was also about that time that his mother rang the
Speaker 1: dinner bell for them to come and eat. I was
Speaker 1: invited to join them, as was the custom, and we
Speaker 1: washed up and took a seat at the table. While
Speaker 1: we were eating, the rain started again, and I knew
Speaker 1: my ride home would be a wet one. Yet it
Speaker 1: was nothing I had not done. Before I finished eating,
Speaker 1: and I thanked missus Emma for my dinner, and I
Speaker 1: asked to be excused to make my way back home.
Speaker 1: I was asked to spend the night or Eric's father
Speaker 1: would give me a ride home. I could pick up
Speaker 1: my horse from the barn the next day. They said, well,
Speaker 1: I was pondering what I wanted to do, and I
Speaker 1: remembered that I had not removed the saddle from Ivan,
Speaker 1: my horse. Eric and his father walked with me out
Speaker 1: to the barn, and the rain had quit and the
Speaker 1: sky was clear and a full moon shone overhead. I
Speaker 1: could cut my travel time in half if I went
Speaker 1: straight through the ravines. It was a straight line from
Speaker 1: where I was to our house. I told Eric's father
Speaker 1: that I would take the north Pass and that would
Speaker 1: take me two hours. And I told Eric that I
Speaker 1: would see him at school the next day. Ivan and
Speaker 1: I took off at a full gallop across the pasture
Speaker 1: nearest the bar, and reached the first gate in no time.
Speaker 1: After closing the gate, I turned south. I reached the
Speaker 1: south end of the pasture, and I turned east where
Speaker 1: I came to a fence line. There's a cut in
Speaker 1: the fence that Eric and I used all the time.
Speaker 1: The bright moonlight was blocked by the trees, but still
Speaker 1: I knew my way, and my worry was how much
Speaker 1: runoff there had been from the rain. I knew the
Speaker 1: first creek crossing would be the hardest. The banks were
Speaker 1: soft and usually hard for a horse to climb, but
Speaker 1: the second crossing would be easier. The creek bottom was
Speaker 1: rock and gravel there. When I got to the first
Speaker 1: creek crossing, I was surprised it had not topped its banks.
Speaker 1: It looked easier than I had anticipated. Ivan and I
Speaker 1: made our way upstream to a point just below a
Speaker 1: bend in the creek, where it got shallow, and Ivan
Speaker 1: knew the route. He waded in without hesitation. On other
Speaker 1: crossings in the past, the water was never up to
Speaker 1: his girth strap, but this time it was now. I
Speaker 1: pulled my feet from the stirrups and I gave him
Speaker 1: his head. He knew where he was going, and after
Speaker 1: crossing that creek, the barn was only a quarter mile away.
Speaker 1: We arrived at the second creek crossing that was fifty
Speaker 1: yards from the fence that would lead me to the barn.
Speaker 1: The creek bank on the west side where I was
Speaker 1: entering was low but a bit rocky, and Ivan would
Speaker 1: sometimes place his hoof two or more times before he
Speaker 1: was happy with his footing, and then he would take
Speaker 1: the next step. We had a full creek in fifteen
Speaker 1: yards to reach the other bank, and beyond that there
Speaker 1: were mesquite trees that lined the banks, and it made
Speaker 1: the last fifty yards completely dark. We made it to
Speaker 1: the bank and I gave Ivan his head again and
Speaker 1: he picked up speed to climb out of the river.
Speaker 1: It was muscle memory for him because we had crossed
Speaker 1: there many times. With my head down and leaning into
Speaker 1: his climb, Ivan leveled out and trotted toward the trees.
Speaker 1: We entered that last stretch under the darkness of the trees.
Speaker 1: Ivan was only a horse length into the darkness, and
Speaker 1: he stopped. Had I not been holding onto the saddle horn,
Speaker 1: I would have launched over his head. Ivan snorted and
Speaker 1: shook his head and started moving backwards. It was dark,
Speaker 1: but I immediately saw what spoke to my horse. In
Speaker 1: front of us and slightly to the right was something
Speaker 1: I had never seen. In the saddle, my head was
Speaker 1: over seven feet off the ground, and this head was
Speaker 1: higher than mine. Fear is not something that comes natural
Speaker 1: to those of us that grow up in the country,
Speaker 1: and even at nine, I was doing my best to
Speaker 1: evaluate my situation. I knew every inch of the ground
Speaker 1: that I was traveling and every animal that was there,
Speaker 1: and I had worked that land with my father from
Speaker 1: the time I was big enough to sit on his lap.
Speaker 1: Ivan backed up until he felt his left rear hoof
Speaker 1: slip and he froze in place, still snorting and shaking
Speaker 1: his head. I was trying to understand what I was seeing,
Speaker 1: and then a lightning strike lit the area and I
Speaker 1: could see the eight foot tall creature. The huge head
Speaker 1: and the long arms are what imprinted in that fraction
Speaker 1: of a second of light. I felt fear as the
Speaker 1: thunder rumbled, and I rained Ivan to the left and
Speaker 1: headed north along the west bank with no concern of
Speaker 1: my own safety. My mind was still reeling and trying
Speaker 1: to understand what I had seen. Ivan got us to
Speaker 1: the fence line where it crossed the creek on his own,
Speaker 1: and I turned Ivan's out down the fence line to
Speaker 1: the gate, and I could feel my horse's urgency in
Speaker 1: fear under me. I didn't go to the barn. I
Speaker 1: rode right up to the back door that entered the mudroom,
Speaker 1: and I didn't bother taking off my boots. I walked
Speaker 1: into the house where my mother was cleaning up after dinner.
Speaker 1: That moment she looked at me. She stopped what she
Speaker 1: was doing, and she said, Dan, what's wrong. My father
Speaker 1: was in earshot, and he came into the kitchen within
Speaker 1: a few seconds. If you are a boy in the South,
Speaker 1: there is a mistake that you will make only one time.
Speaker 1: I do not recall my age when I made that mistake,
Speaker 1: but I was no older than five years old, and
Speaker 1: the only time I ever lied to my father. When
Speaker 1: I told him the events that I just told you,
Speaker 1: he asked me only two questions. One was to repeat
Speaker 1: what exactly happened when Ivan stopped and started backing up.
Speaker 1: I told her that he backed up until there was
Speaker 1: no safe footing for him, and he continued to snort
Speaker 1: and shake his head, even with my hands and the reins.
Speaker 1: The second question was are you sure it was not
Speaker 1: a man? And I told him that I was sure.
Speaker 1: Dad walked towards me and he said, let's go in
Speaker 1: the mudroom. He put on his boots and hat, he
Speaker 1: strapped on his gun belt, and he grabbed a rifle.
Speaker 1: He handed me the shotgun. Dad checked ivan over and
Speaker 1: then he told me to meet him at the barn.
Speaker 1: When I got there, my father had his horse, Dixie,
Speaker 1: saddled and ready to go. And for the first time,
Speaker 1: I asked, what is that? Dad? He lit a kerosene
Speaker 1: lantern and he said, Dan, I don't know, but I've
Speaker 1: heard stories about these things from grandpap Rod. Now grandpap
Speaker 1: Rod was my grandfather. He lived till he was one
Speaker 1: hundred and seven years old, and he died in nineteen
Speaker 1: seventy two. We took a different route to the place.
Speaker 1: We were heading through the north gate. I had no fear.
Speaker 1: I was with my father. He had been a cowboy
Speaker 1: all his life and had worked this land with his
Speaker 1: father and his grandfather. Dad held the lantern over his
Speaker 1: head from time to time. The floods early in the
Speaker 1: month had left to breathe in the treetops and in
Speaker 1: the light of the lantern, it was a surreal scene.
Speaker 1: My father watched the ground in front of Dixie, and
Speaker 1: then his hand raised and we stopped. My father quietly dismounted,
Speaker 1: and when his colt in his right hand and a
Speaker 1: lantern in the other, he made his way to where
Speaker 1: I saw the creature. He was low and he was
Speaker 1: following tracks on the ground. He turned the corner, going
Speaker 1: into the woods where Ivan and I had been when
Speaker 1: we saw it, and when he did, I lost sight
Speaker 1: of him. I was in the dark alone again, and
Speaker 1: it felt like an But finally I saw the lantern
Speaker 1: light moving through the trees. Dad had it held high
Speaker 1: over his head. Dan, come on back here, I heard
Speaker 1: him say. I dismounted and I started walking. I could
Speaker 1: see him just ten feet ahead of me, holding the
Speaker 1: lantern up and looking at something in the tree. And
Speaker 1: in the light I could see a deer had drowned
Speaker 1: in the flood, and it was hung up in the
Speaker 1: tree eight or ten feet up. Debris was hung in
Speaker 1: its antlers, making its head look bigger than it was.
Speaker 1: The body was bloated and rotting, and it smelled horrible.
Speaker 1: We never found the creature I saw, but I think
Speaker 1: this rotting deer is why it was there. I know
Speaker 1: that is not the ending most people were hoping for,
Speaker 1: but that is exactly how it happened.