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