Speaker 1: This last summer, the Dan broke at Wixom Lake in Michigan.
It forever changed the lives of the people who lived
there after the five hundred year flood that it cost.
There was a spillway on the southwestern side of the
lake that afforded beautiful views of the river valley carved
into the forested area. When I was growing up, my
friends and I would ride our bikes and explore everywhere
we could back there. It isn't an especially expansive plot
of land, but it was secluded enough, and it connects
to a large piece of state owned land by where
I currently live. One summer night in two thousand and nine,
just after dark, a friend and I decided to take
a hike down a two track that led behind the spillway.
We walked a long trail that is surrounded by woods
down to the pond, and then up the steep hill
to the spillway, where we sat and watched the lake
for a while. The occasional boat and the small, steady
spill of water down the pond were the only noises
we could hear. It was a beautiful night, but eventually
we knew we had better head back to the car.
We chatted normally as we walked through the dark. We
were in no hurry, and our gate matched our mindset.
We were a little more than halfway back when I
heard something making noise in the woods fairly close by.
My friend was small and she was a female, so
I didn't mention it because I didn't want to freak
her out. We maintained the same casual pace as we continued,
but I began to realize just how close whatever was
making the noise was to us. It was walking parallel
to us, and it sounded really big. I couldn't hide
it anymore. I signaled to stop, and when we did,
it stopped too. I think I was more inquisitive than
a armed at this point. I thought, somebody's got to
be messing with us. Well. We started walking again, and
it immediately began walking with us. It couldn't have been
more than fifteen yards away. I was really kicking myself
for not bringing a flashlight. Some boy scout I turned
out to be. My friend understandably was not enjoying this
at all. We walked a few more paces and stopped again,
and it followed suit. Although I couldn't see or smell anything,
I could hear its footsteps mimicking ours right next to us.
I finally called out, all right, I hear you over there,
come on out now. I'm over six feet tall and
I have a low voice. I don't sound like easy prey.
But I didn't make a move. There was no response.
I walked a bit more and it did the same,
keeping a close distance right behind us. When we stopped again,
it stopped two. When we walked again, it started walking.
We stopped again and my friend moved in close to me.
By now she was terrified. I pulled out my forty
five and racked one in the chamber. That's an unmistakable
sound on a quiet night. I knew he or she
or it had heard that. That was the point. Now yelled, hey,
I've got a gun and I will shoot you, hoping
to scare this person off. But it didn't work. We
started back up the trail and it stayed with us.
Now I was really concerned if it was a person,
they were aware that I had a loaded gun in
my hands. I had just threatened to put their lights out.
Was anybody that stupid? I don't think so. So what
animal would be doing this the way it was intentionally
stalking us. Made me believe it had the mindset of
a predator. But I had never encountered any behavior like this.
My safety was off. I was unsettled, to say the least,
but I knew that running would be a very bad idea.
I kept the pistol onready out in front of me.
We kept a slow pace back to the car. Except
for the footsteps, it never made a sound. Adrenaline was
in heavy supply the rest of the height. As soon
as we reached the edge of the woods and had
the car in sight, it stopped. We couldn't get gone
fast enough. Felt like a ton of bricks was lifted
off my chest. Nine years later, in twenty eighteen, I
had another experience about ten miles from the lake where
the first incident occurred. Some friends and I decided to
go winter camping in the state owned land behind my
house on the coldest weekend of the year. I'm no
stranger to the forest there. I've spent a lot of
time hunting, camping, and exploring in those woods. The temperature
was negative thirty degrees fahrenheit that weekend. People were advice
to stay inside, but we thought it would be great
time to hike three miles into the woods set up
a camp for the weekend. It was dangerous, but not
if you know what you're doing. The first night went smooth.
We cooked a hot meal, had a few drinks, and
chatted for a while, and we all went to sleep.
I slept for a little while, but the pham pillow
turned out to be a lumpy boulder and I couldn't
get comfortable, so I decided to get up. Note to
self memory, foam pillows in extremely cold temperatures do not mix.
I sat by the fire and enjoyed the silence in
the twilight sky. It gets incredibly quiet on a winter
night with no wind. There were no critters making noises
at all, and I didn't hear anything except my friends
in their tents snoring in their sleep. Crack, the sudden
noise of what sounded like a tree exploding nearby me
made me jump out of my skin. It was strange
out and unnerving. I listened close, but I heard no
branches or trees crashing down. I'd have recognized that if
I heard that. A few minutes later, it happened again.
Now things were getting weird. I grabbed my rifle and
I headed to the area to have a look. I
walked down the hill from the camp to the frozen
stream and I posted up. I heard it a few
more times, but I never saw anything move. One of
my friends got up as well, and I told him
what I heard. We sat and listened for about an hour.
We heard the trees bursting all around the camp. First
it would come from one area and then from another.
It wasn't a tree knock, nor it was it anything
you might typically hear in nature. I was too well
armed to get spooked, but my curiosity was definitely piqued.
I wanted to see what was causing it more than anything.
I thought there could be an explanation for these trees
making these loud noises and extremely cold temperatures, but I
haven't found one. It reminded me of one of the
stories of a policeman who was hiking to his friend's
grave in the Pacific Northwest. In his story, the trees
sounded like they were shattering, but there was no physical
evidence to support the noise. It was the same thing
for us, without the terrifying chase. Eventually, the sun came
up and the sound stopped. We had a bizarre story
to tell our friends who slept through it all. I
didn't see anything in either event. They were just some
strange encounters that I can't explain. Back in the late
nineteen fifties, when my dad was still a young man,
he hiked by himself up a marked and maintained US
Forest Service trail to the top of a nearby mountain.
He was there to hunt a heavily thicketed area for
black tail deer. It was an arduous two hour trek
in the dark, and as he reached the summit, an
unexpected dense fog rolled in, dropping visibility to near zero.
The area had proven itself productive in the past, and
he had no desire to make his return trip so soon,
so he sat down to wait it out, hoping the
fog would dissipate once the sun came up, or at
the very least it would thin out enough to allow
him to continue hunting. He lit a cigarette, and from
about a half mile away, something screened. My dad always
maintained that he had experienced and could recognize all the
screams and calls from every dangerous predator known to inhabit
the Cascades, except this one. My mother described my dad
as someone who wasn't afraid of the devil himself, and
I personally witnessed this bravery and intestinal fortitude on many occasions. However,
when Dad recounted this tale, a shadow of unsure certainty
crossed his face, as if he were uncomfortable with the memory.
He said, it was a cross between a woman's screaming
and a male lion's roar, and it seemed like it
went on for a minute or longer, as if from
an animal with a massive lung capacity. Suddenly, Dad's Winchester
thirty thirty rifle didn't seem big enough should he have
to challenge whatever was out there, So discretion being the
better part of valor, he decided to climb about thirty
feet up a nearby snag, and there he sat on
a big, bare limb, listening as the unknown creature sliced
through the darkness, its screaming roar echoing through the fog
every few minutes and coming ever closer. Unfortunately, the fog
settled downward and thickened substantially in the pre dawned chill,
until he could no longer see the forest floor, but
his eyes remained riveted on the mists swirling beneath him, waiting,
though he wasn't sure for what. Then, realization set the
air from his lungs and sent his heart racing into
his throat as he heard the unmistakable and terrifying sound
of someone climbing up the branches below. Quickly, acting out
of pure instinct, he swung the barrel of his rifle
around and pointed it in the direction of the sound.
Bracing himself for the battle of a lifetime, he watched
as a human like form slowly broke through the fog.
To his relief, he saw that it was another hunter
who had the same idea to get out of the
way of the screaming creature below. He relaxed with a sigh,
grateful not to be so alone against an unknown enemy.
The other hunter was a logger who lived in the area.
The man told my dad that he'd hunted this spot
for nearly all of his forty five years and had
never heard anything even remotely similar to the sounds that
they were now experiencing below, sounds that were now even closer.
They positioned themselves as nearly back to back as they could,
and they waited, praying for adequate daylight to survive so
they could at least see what they were up against.
Time crawled as they sat in anticipation, holding their breath
and trying not to panic. Eventually, the creature stopped screaming,
and it was no longer crashing through the brush. Apparently
it had vacated the area without ever revealing itself. Sometime
after sunrise, the fog burned off, and Dad and his
new friend climbed down from their perch. Both men continued
their hunt for the rest of the day, but without
further incident. Neither was ever able to identify or determine
what it was that had tried them. Soon after that,
Dad purchased a much more powerful three hundred magnum rifle
he used for hunting in the Cascade From that day forward,
he always insisted that his reason for buying it had
nothing to do with his experience on the mountaintop that morning.
Years later, Dad, my brother, and I would share another
experience during a hunting trip. It's an account that I
have relived in my mind many times in the last
fifty years since it happened, but I've only shared it
with my wife and immediate family. I guess it's time
to share it with you and your listeners before it's
loss forever. It was in the early nineteen seventies and
I had just completed my first four year enlistment of
a thirty three year career in the Air Force. My
wife and I had returned to my home state of
Washington on terminal leave. I was spending some quality time
reconnecting with family and friends, shaking off the lingering remnants
of wartime nerves and homesickness, and arguing with myself as
to whether to re enlist for another four years or
go back to school and finish college on the GI bill.
It was November and deer season was open in Washington,
so my dad, my brother, and I decided to celebrate
my homecoming and the fact that I had survived the
war in Vietnam with a nostalgic hunting trip to the
Mount Adam's Wilderness backcountry, an area that we had hunted, camped,
and fished, and escaped the daily grind for most of
my young life. We had a perfect spot picked out
where we had camped before. It was a pretty little
meadow adjacent to a natural spring in an area that
was heavily timbered with old growth firs, ponder rosa pine, hemlocks, scrub,
open vine, maple, and it was prime deer hunting habitat.
Except for the tiny town of Trout Lake, it was
miles from civilization. At the time. Trout Lake, Washington was
no more than a wide spot in the road supported
by the timber industry in the US four Service activities.
It consisted of a gas station, a small cafe, a
general store, and inhabitants who were friendly to the local hunters.
It was a convenient place to restock our supplies, refuel,
or grab a bite to eat when we got desperate
for something other than campfare. My father and brother were
both experienced hunters and woodsmen. As such, they were always
enjoyable to hunt with. I had no doubt that he'd
return home with good memories and with any luck, enough
venison to fill a couple of freezers. I was ten
years younger than my brother and eager to join the
ranks of accomplished hunters and our family around the campfire,
I always listened intently as they shared stories of their
hunting adventures in the Washington Cascade Mountains. Their tails were
sometimes scary, sometimes dramatic, and sometimes sad. Sometimes funny, but
they always kept my attention. One of my favorites was
the time my dad was tried by an unknown creature.
As we set up camp that night, we had no
idea we'd soon be adding another story to that list.
It was around the third evening of our hunt, and
we were walking the graveled forest road back to camp,
which was another mile or so to the north. It
was almost dark, past legal hunting hour, so our high
powered rifles were unloaded and slung over our shoulders as
we walked three abreast, talking quietly and joking with each
other about the day's hunt. The gravel was a light
yellow crushed rock that was easily navigated even without flashlights. Unexpectedly,
my dad and brother came to an abrupt halt. What
the hell is that, my dad whispered in astonishment. It
took a moment from my brother and I to find
out what he was looking at, but when we did,
I reacted by immediately reloading my rifle. My dad and
brother followed suit with our guns at the ready. We
stood and stared in disbelief as approximately one hundred feet
in front of us and to the right, a very tall,
very wide, and very dark figure was walking slowly and
quietly from our right to our left through the heavy timber.
It was walking on two legs. As it reached the road,
it stopped and appeared to stare directly at us for
a long moment before continuing on its way. We got
a good look at it silhouette as it crossed the
light colored road fill, and then went up and over
a four foot tall vertical cut bank on the west
side of the road, and it disappeared into the forest.
The entire episode lasted no more than a few minutes,
but we all agreed later that it felt like we
were watching it happen in slow motion. Stapled fairly high
on a furred tree, immediately behind the creature was a
thin plastic, bright yellow forestry mal marker. In spite of
the encroaching darkness, it was still plainly visible, but when
the creature passed between us and the sign, its head
blocked our view of it. Once the creature had disappeared
into the woods, we walked in single file formation, our
rifles still loaded and with safeties off, down the far
right side of the road, keeping our focus on the
left side. As we went. We remained on alert all
the way back to camp, and it was well after
dinner was cooked and eaten and the dishes were washed
before any of us spoke about it. We were all
lost in our own thoughts and reliving in our minds
what we had just witnessed. Even after we found our tongues,
it was my brother and me who did most of
the talking around the campfire. Dad remained quiet for the
most part. I believe he was mulling things over in
his mind and trying to work them out, or perhaps
he was reliving that morning in the tree and comparing
the two of events. Dad knew these woods better than anyone.
He'd hunted and scouted them for decades. Yet it was
obvious that he had never seen anything like what we
had just seen, and we could tell that it was
bothering him. My father and brother both had a lubinum
pickup truck covers to sleep under. That night. Alone in
my tent, I tried to sleep. My rifle was at
my side, but every sound brought me wide awake and
put me on edge. When daylight finally came, I was relieved,
despite my fears, the creature or whatever it was, had
chosen to leave us in peace. That morning, we passed
the same spot as we walked back to our hunting
area and stopped to search the cut bank for tracks,
hoping we'd be able to identify what we had seen
the night before, and we didn't find any, but we
were able to determine that the creature would have to
have taken giant steps up the four foot vertical incline
to negotiate the cut bank. On the west side of
the road at that spot was a well worn deer
trail that it had probably followed down the hill through
the timber. When we reached the spot where we had
initially seen the creature, we looked back and were shocked
to realize that for its head to block the mile
marker when it passed, it would have had to have
been in an excess of eight feet tall. The next day,
Dad harvested an ice buck, and all thoughts of big,
hairy monsters were put aside. We were all back at
camp early that afternoon and deciding what to do with
the deer. It was an unusually warm November and we
were faced with a dilemma of how to keep it
from spoiling before we could get it back to Dad's house.
In Vancouver, which was a two hour drive to the west.
In cooler weather, we would have just hung and cured
the deer, but with several days of hunting still ahead
of us and with the warm weather, that was not
an option. We decided the Dad and I would take
the deer back to his house, prepping, bag the meat
and hang it in his garage where it was nice
and cool, while my brother stayed at camp, and then
Dad and I would make the two hour drive back
and arrived that evening to prepare for the next day's hunt,
since my brother and I had yet to fill our tags.
We arrived at my father's house and completed our task,
and we're about to head back out when Mom informed
us that dinner was ready. No one is to ever
pass up on a chance at her fantastic cooking, so
we stayed and enjoyed the fruits of her labor. But
that meant we didn't leave until well after dark. We
were still several miles from camp when we noticed an
orange glow in the sky and through the trees. We
were puzzled. It was absolutely no civilization near where we
were camp, so we had to conclude that it must
be my brother but we couldn't understand why. When it
finally came into sight, we were amazed at the size
of the bonfire burning in the middle of our little meadow.
Flames were leaping a good ten feet into the air,
and it was so bright it was illuminating the forest
that ringed the field. And sitting right next to close
enough to melt the barrel of the rifle sitting in
his lap, was my brother. I reiterate, it was an
unusually warm November. There was no reason for a fire
of this size. We pulled up and Dad got out
and asked, why in the world my brother would build
such an inferno while you two were in Vancouver taking
your damn sweet time. My brother retorted, I was here
fending off a pack of howling coyotes. Well, this drew
a look from my dad and me. Coyotes were not
something my brother had ever feared. They were always seen
and heard around our camp at night, and they were
considered generally harmless to adult humans, and my brother knew
this whatever he heard. Once we arrived, it stopped. My
Dad my brother have long said it's passed away, but
until their dying days, we relived this incident many times
at the dinner table and around the campfire. We tried
to make sense of it, but mostly we just liked
giving my brother a hard time about burning up most
of our firewood in one night. Well probably never know
exactly what it was, but my brother and I have
always thought it was probably a sosquatch. My dad, on
the other hand, was not a believer by any stretch
of the imagination. He always felt that for every strange
occurrence in the forest there was a logical explanation. However,
he was never able to come up with any explanation
at all. Since retiring from the Air Force, I've returned
to that spot many times to show my wife where
it all happened. For some reason, she never likes to
stick around for very long. You