WEBVTT 1 00:00:02.520 --> 00:00:05.759 For decades, people have disappeared in the woods without a trace. 2 00:00:06.519 --> 00:00:10.279 Some blame wild animals, others whisper of creatures the world 3 00:00:10.359 --> 00:00:14.160 refuses to believe in. But those who have survived they 4 00:00:14.199 --> 00:00:18.679 know the truth. Welcome to Backwoods Bigfoot Stories, where we 5 00:00:18.719 --> 00:00:22.839 share real encounters with the things lurking in the darkness bigfoot, 6 00:00:23.199 --> 00:00:28.239 dog man, UFOs, and creatures that defy explanation. Some make 7 00:00:28.280 --> 00:00:32.320 it out, others aren't so lucky. Are you ready, because 8 00:00:32.320 --> 00:00:34.640 once you hear these stories, you'll never walk in the 9 00:00:34.640 --> 00:00:38.920 woods alone again. So grab your flashlight, stay close, and 10 00:00:39.039 --> 00:00:41.840 remember some things in the woods don't want to be found. 11 00:00:42.520 --> 00:00:46.240 Hit that follow or subscribe button, turn on auto downloads, 12 00:00:46.439 --> 00:00:48.399 and let's head off into the woods if you dare. 13 00:01:02.799 --> 00:01:05.439 If you've been with this series from the beginning through 14 00:01:05.519 --> 00:01:09.280 all ten parts, I want to thank you. Garrett's story 15 00:01:09.319 --> 00:01:12.040 has been one of the most extraordinary accounts I've ever 16 00:01:12.079 --> 00:01:14.640 had the privilege of sharing, and the fact that so 17 00:01:14.760 --> 00:01:18.439 many of you stayed with it episode after episode means 18 00:01:18.480 --> 00:01:21.079 more to me than I can say. If you're coming 19 00:01:21.120 --> 00:01:23.680 in late, i'd strongly encourage you to go back and 20 00:01:23.719 --> 00:01:27.480 start at part one. This finale draws on every thread 21 00:01:27.480 --> 00:01:30.200 from every story that came before it, and it won't 22 00:01:30.200 --> 00:01:33.519 carry its full weight without that foundation. I'm not going 23 00:01:33.599 --> 00:01:36.519 to recap the full series here. You've either heard it 24 00:01:36.799 --> 00:01:40.799 or you haven't. What I will say is this, Over 25 00:01:40.840 --> 00:01:43.599 the course of nine stories, Garrett has taken us from 26 00:01:43.599 --> 00:01:46.280 the first wood knock on a summer evening in twenty 27 00:01:46.359 --> 00:01:49.079 fourteen to a night on the ridge in twenty nineteen 28 00:01:49.439 --> 00:01:52.200 that ended a thirty year friendship's ability to function on 29 00:01:52.239 --> 00:01:57.959 the same mountain after dark. He's described tracks, sightings, vocal mimicry, 30 00:01:58.239 --> 00:02:02.879 garden raids, snow circuit its stick structures, a bluff overlooked 31 00:02:02.879 --> 00:02:06.040 with three creatures on the slope below, two dogs who 32 00:02:06.159 --> 00:02:09.439 chased something into the forest and came back changed, an 33 00:02:09.479 --> 00:02:13.120 elderly neighbor who delivered fifty years of documentation from across 34 00:02:13.159 --> 00:02:16.159 the creek, and an ill advised experiment that proved the 35 00:02:16.199 --> 00:02:19.759 creatures could coordinate a tactical response faster than two men 36 00:02:19.800 --> 00:02:22.840 could figure out how to leave. Through all of it, 37 00:02:23.120 --> 00:02:26.479 one question has hovered over every encounter. Why haven't they 38 00:02:26.560 --> 00:02:31.520 hurt anybody? In ten years of contact across dozens of incidents, 39 00:02:31.879 --> 00:02:34.759 The creatures on the Bishop Creek corridor have never once 40 00:02:34.879 --> 00:02:38.360 harmed Garrett, his dogs, or any human who's lived on 41 00:02:38.400 --> 00:02:41.680 the corridor in the fifty five years of recorded observation. 42 00:02:42.599 --> 00:02:46.639 Opel gave him a partial answer, the generational credit, the 43 00:02:46.719 --> 00:02:51.039 silence agreement, the idea that Earl's decades of quiet restraint 44 00:02:51.120 --> 00:02:55.159 had purchased a grace period that Garrett inherited. But Garrett 45 00:02:55.159 --> 00:02:58.280 always felt there was more to it than that. Something 46 00:02:58.319 --> 00:03:02.159 Earle hadn't said, something Opal either didn't know or chose 47 00:03:02.199 --> 00:03:05.759 not to share. There was a deeper layer beneath the arrangement, 48 00:03:06.080 --> 00:03:08.879 and it explained not just the restraint, but the attention. 49 00:03:09.840 --> 00:03:13.199 Think about the full picture here. The nightly visits, the 50 00:03:13.199 --> 00:03:18.919 window observations, the garden harvesting, the mimicry tests, the escort behavior. 51 00:03:19.759 --> 00:03:23.120 All of it pointed to a relationship that went beyond tolerance, 52 00:03:23.879 --> 00:03:27.159 something closer to investment, as if the creatures weren't just 53 00:03:27.240 --> 00:03:30.439 allowing Garrett to live on their corridor, but were watching 54 00:03:30.520 --> 00:03:33.120 him the way you'd watch someone you were deciding about 55 00:03:33.759 --> 00:03:39.159 evaluating over years. In story ten, Garrett finds out what 56 00:03:39.240 --> 00:03:43.840 Earl buried, and what he buried changes everything. Here's Garrett 57 00:03:44.800 --> 00:03:47.439 in the spring of twenty twenty one, seven years after 58 00:03:47.479 --> 00:03:50.759 I'd bought the property and nearly five years after Earl passed, 59 00:03:51.159 --> 00:03:54.280 I decided to renovate the root seller. Now let me 60 00:03:54.280 --> 00:03:57.800 set the scene on this, because the cellar matters. It 61 00:03:57.879 --> 00:04:00.919 was accessed through a trapdoor in the kitchen floor, a 62 00:04:00.960 --> 00:04:04.039 heavy plank door with a recessed iron ring pull that 63 00:04:04.120 --> 00:04:07.560 Earl had installed when he built the cabin in seventy one. 64 00:04:07.599 --> 00:04:10.319 The cellar itself was about eight feet by ten feet, 65 00:04:10.639 --> 00:04:14.280 dug into the hillside beneath the cabin's foundation with stone 66 00:04:14.319 --> 00:04:17.519 walls that Earl and Frank had laid by hand. It 67 00:04:17.600 --> 00:04:21.600 stayed fifty five degrees year round, ideal for storing canned 68 00:04:21.600 --> 00:04:25.920 goods and root vegetables. RIBA's canning jars were still down there, 69 00:04:26.199 --> 00:04:29.120 lined up on poplar shelves, some of them dating back 70 00:04:29.160 --> 00:04:32.720 to twenty twelve. I'd never moved them. They felt like 71 00:04:32.759 --> 00:04:36.519 they belonged. The renovation was minor. One of the stone 72 00:04:36.560 --> 00:04:39.199 walls had started to wheep moisture after a wet winter, 73 00:04:39.600 --> 00:04:41.600 and I wanted to repoint the mortar and add a 74 00:04:41.639 --> 00:04:45.879 French drain along the base. Standard basement work a day 75 00:04:45.920 --> 00:04:50.199 of labor two at most, I hauled the canning jars upstairs, 76 00:04:50.480 --> 00:04:52.959 moved the shelving units out of the way, and started 77 00:04:53.000 --> 00:04:55.480 chipping out the old mortar on the south wall with 78 00:04:55.560 --> 00:04:59.360 a cold chisel and a hammer. The stones were filled stone, 79 00:04:59.639 --> 00:05:02.839 roughly shaped, fitted together with a lime based mortar that 80 00:05:02.920 --> 00:05:06.319 had held up remarkably well for fifty years. That was 81 00:05:06.360 --> 00:05:09.519 Frank's work. Earl had told me his brother had helped 82 00:05:09.519 --> 00:05:12.600 delay the foundation and the cellar walls, and Frank had 83 00:05:12.600 --> 00:05:15.800 been a stone mason by trade, the kind of craftsman 84 00:05:15.800 --> 00:05:18.399 who'd been trained by his father and whose work would 85 00:05:18.399 --> 00:05:21.759 outlast two generations of the men who came after him. 86 00:05:21.959 --> 00:05:24.439 The weeping was coming from a single point about three 87 00:05:24.480 --> 00:05:27.120 feet off the floor, where the mortar had cracked and 88 00:05:27.160 --> 00:05:30.360 the stone behind it had shifted, opening a gap that 89 00:05:30.480 --> 00:05:34.040 was letting ground water seep through. I worked the chisel 90 00:05:34.079 --> 00:05:37.600 around the shifted stone, loosening the mortar on all four sides, 91 00:05:37.920 --> 00:05:41.240 intending to pull the stone out, reset it with fresh mortar, 92 00:05:41.519 --> 00:05:46.000 and seal the gap. Like I said, standard work. The 93 00:05:46.000 --> 00:05:49.439 stone came free, easier than I expected, way too easy. 94 00:05:50.160 --> 00:05:51.639 When I pulled it out and set it on the 95 00:05:51.639 --> 00:05:55.680 cellar floor, I saw why the stone behind it wasn't there. 96 00:05:56.199 --> 00:05:58.480 There was a cavity in the wall. And I need 97 00:05:58.480 --> 00:06:01.399 to be specific about what I mean, because this wasn't 98 00:06:01.399 --> 00:06:04.959 a natural gap between field stones. It wasn't a pocket 99 00:06:05.000 --> 00:06:07.560 where the mortar had failed. It wasn't the kind of 100 00:06:07.639 --> 00:06:10.920 void you sometimes find an old rubble construction where a 101 00:06:10.959 --> 00:06:14.600 stone cracked and the pieces fell away. This was a space, 102 00:06:15.240 --> 00:06:19.920 intentional neat about eighteen inches wide, twelve inches tall, and 103 00:06:19.959 --> 00:06:23.920 maybe ten inches deep. The sides were smooth, the bottom 104 00:06:23.959 --> 00:06:27.040 was flat. The mortar around the edges was finished the 105 00:06:27.040 --> 00:06:30.519 way you'd finish a window frame. Someone had removed several 106 00:06:30.560 --> 00:06:33.800 stones from the interior of the wall and created a compartment, 107 00:06:34.240 --> 00:06:36.439 then covered it with a single fitted stone on the 108 00:06:36.480 --> 00:06:39.959 cellar face, a stone that matched every other stone in 109 00:06:40.000 --> 00:06:43.120 the wall, a stone you'd never pull unless you had 110 00:06:43.120 --> 00:06:46.680 a reason to open that particular section. Here's what hit me. 111 00:06:47.560 --> 00:06:50.480 Earle had built a hiding spot inside his own foundation, 112 00:06:51.319 --> 00:06:54.680 probably during the original construction in seventy one, when the 113 00:06:54.720 --> 00:06:57.680 cellar walls were going up, and nobody would have questioned 114 00:06:57.720 --> 00:07:00.920 why one section of interior stone work looked different from 115 00:07:00.959 --> 00:07:04.040 the rest. He'd planned this before he'd even moved in, 116 00:07:04.720 --> 00:07:08.680 before the knocking before the garden raids, before any of it, 117 00:07:09.560 --> 00:07:11.720 he'd built a place to put something that he knew 118 00:07:11.959 --> 00:07:15.560 even then he was going to need to hide. Inside 119 00:07:15.600 --> 00:07:18.199 the cavity, Wrapped in a plastic garbage bag that had 120 00:07:18.240 --> 00:07:21.639 been folded tight and sealed with packing tape, was a bundle. 121 00:07:22.279 --> 00:07:25.720 I pulled it out, carefully heavy for its size, maybe 122 00:07:25.720 --> 00:07:29.519 three or four pounds. The plastic was dusty but intact. 123 00:07:30.079 --> 00:07:33.759 The tape had yellowed with age, but still held Whatever 124 00:07:33.879 --> 00:07:36.639 was inside had been waiting there for a very long time. 125 00:07:37.800 --> 00:07:40.120 I brought it upstairs and set it on the kitchen table. 126 00:07:40.680 --> 00:07:43.560 The cellar was cold, and the plastic felt cold in 127 00:07:43.600 --> 00:07:47.439 my hands. Condensation was forming on the outside of the bag, 128 00:07:47.480 --> 00:07:50.319 where two different air temperatures met on the same surface. 129 00:07:51.079 --> 00:07:53.480 Bowie lifted his head from his blanket and watched me 130 00:07:53.560 --> 00:07:55.920 with the mild interest of a dog who seen his 131 00:07:56.040 --> 00:07:59.040 owner bring many strange things into the house and has 132 00:07:59.120 --> 00:08:01.360 learned not to get ect until one of them turns 133 00:08:01.360 --> 00:08:04.519 out to be food. Ruby was outside on the porch, 134 00:08:04.879 --> 00:08:07.240 lying in a bar of afternoon sun that came through 135 00:08:07.279 --> 00:08:10.480 the railing slats. I cut the tape with a utility 136 00:08:10.519 --> 00:08:14.199 knife and peeled back the layers of plastic, three layers. 137 00:08:14.680 --> 00:08:18.399 Earl had triple wrapped whatever was inside, folding each layer 138 00:08:18.439 --> 00:08:23.120 separately and taping each one three waterproof seals, and those 139 00:08:23.160 --> 00:08:25.319 seals had kept the contents dry for what I was 140 00:08:25.319 --> 00:08:29.399 about to learn had been nearly fifty years. Inside were 141 00:08:29.399 --> 00:08:33.440 three items, a leather bound journal about six by nine inches, 142 00:08:33.960 --> 00:08:37.399 the cover cracked and worn, a folded piece of paper 143 00:08:37.399 --> 00:08:39.879 that turned out to be a hand drawn map, and 144 00:08:39.919 --> 00:08:42.480 a sealed envelope with a single word written on the 145 00:08:42.480 --> 00:08:48.120 front in Earl's handwriting. Garrett my name on an envelope 146 00:08:48.120 --> 00:08:50.279 that had been sealed inside a wall that Earl had 147 00:08:50.279 --> 00:08:53.639 built in nineteen seventy one, in a cabin he'd sold 148 00:08:53.639 --> 00:08:56.840 to me in twenty fourteen, hidden behind a stone that 149 00:08:56.919 --> 00:08:59.919 only someone renovating the cellar would ever have reason to move. 150 00:09:00.799 --> 00:09:05.399 He'd known I'd find it, not when, not under what circumstances. 151 00:09:05.679 --> 00:09:07.519 But he'd known that a man who made his living 152 00:09:07.559 --> 00:09:10.639 with his hands, a contractor who'd told Earl on that 153 00:09:10.679 --> 00:09:13.600 first afternoon that he'd take care of whatever he'd built, 154 00:09:14.000 --> 00:09:17.360 would eventually open those walls, and he'd left something there 155 00:09:17.360 --> 00:09:21.440 for me, addressed to me by name. I sat at 156 00:09:21.440 --> 00:09:24.200 the kitchen table for a long time before I opened anything. 157 00:09:25.200 --> 00:09:30.440 The afternoon passed, the light shifted, Bowie fell asleep, Ruby 158 00:09:30.480 --> 00:09:32.879 came inside and lay at my feet, and I just 159 00:09:32.960 --> 00:09:36.759 sat there, looking at my name in Earl's handwriting, written 160 00:09:36.799 --> 00:09:39.279 by a hand that had been dead for nearly five years, 161 00:09:39.799 --> 00:09:43.279 on an envelope that had been waiting inside a stone. 162 00:09:43.320 --> 00:09:47.360 I opened the envelope, first single page, written in pencil, 163 00:09:48.039 --> 00:09:51.919 Earl's careful, slanting script. The pencil had been sharp when 164 00:09:51.960 --> 00:09:55.759 he started, and the letters were precise and uniform, the 165 00:09:55.799 --> 00:09:57.759 handwriting of a man who'd been taught in a one 166 00:09:57.840 --> 00:10:01.159 room schoolhouse to form his characters correct and had never 167 00:10:01.240 --> 00:10:04.960 lost the discipline. No date at the top, no greeting, 168 00:10:05.440 --> 00:10:09.159 no dear Garrett, just the words beginning at the top 169 00:10:09.159 --> 00:10:11.840 of the page and running to the bottom in a single, 170 00:10:11.919 --> 00:10:15.360 unbroken block. He said, if I was reading this, I'd 171 00:10:15.360 --> 00:10:17.559 probably been on the property long enough to have heard 172 00:10:17.600 --> 00:10:21.159 the knocking. He hoped I'd been paying attention, because what 173 00:10:21.200 --> 00:10:23.320 he was about to share only made sense if I 174 00:10:23.360 --> 00:10:26.399 already knew what lived on the ridge. He said he'd 175 00:10:26.399 --> 00:10:28.399 wanted to tell me all of this face to face. 176 00:10:29.039 --> 00:10:31.759 Sitting on the porch looking at the mountain while he 177 00:10:31.840 --> 00:10:35.039 talked the way two men ought to share something important, 178 00:10:35.720 --> 00:10:38.279 but he couldn't do it that way. And the reason 179 00:10:38.360 --> 00:10:41.320 is something I think about all the time. He believed 180 00:10:41.320 --> 00:10:44.639 they listened. He believed that speaking about them out loud, 181 00:10:44.919 --> 00:10:48.440 within earshot of the forest, within range of whatever attention 182 00:10:48.600 --> 00:10:51.120 they maintained on the cabins and the porches and the 183 00:10:51.159 --> 00:10:54.879 open spaces of the corridor, would violate something he'd spend 184 00:10:54.879 --> 00:10:58.320 his life honoring, something that didn't have a name, but 185 00:10:58.399 --> 00:11:00.840 that he felt the weight of every he'd lived on 186 00:11:00.879 --> 00:11:04.720 that property. Writing it down was different, though, writing it 187 00:11:04.759 --> 00:11:08.120 down and sealing it in stone. The stone was between 188 00:11:08.120 --> 00:11:11.320 the words and the air. The forest couldn't hear what 189 00:11:11.399 --> 00:11:14.759 was buried in a foundation wall, Or at least that's 190 00:11:14.799 --> 00:11:17.240 what he'd chosen to believe, and by the time he 191 00:11:17.279 --> 00:11:19.960 was writing the letter, he'd lived with that belief long 192 00:11:20.080 --> 00:11:23.320 enough that it had become a kind of faith. He 193 00:11:23.399 --> 00:11:26.840 told me about the journal. It was his. He'd started 194 00:11:26.879 --> 00:11:29.559 it in nineteen seventy two, the year after he'd moved 195 00:11:29.559 --> 00:11:31.799 on to the property, and he'd kept it for about 196 00:11:31.799 --> 00:11:35.720 ten years before the entry slowed and eventually stopped, not 197 00:11:35.799 --> 00:11:40.000 because the activity stopped. It never stopped because writing about 198 00:11:40.000 --> 00:11:44.639 it had become redundant. Same cycle every year, the knocking 199 00:11:44.679 --> 00:11:48.679 returning in spring, the garden visited in summer, the tracks 200 00:11:48.720 --> 00:11:53.480 thickening and fall, the nightly circuits in winter. After a decade, 201 00:11:53.759 --> 00:11:56.879 documenting the pattern felt like writing down that the sun rose. 202 00:11:57.679 --> 00:11:59.799 You know it's going to happen. You don't need a 203 00:12:00.039 --> 00:12:03.080 ernal to tell you. But the early entries were the 204 00:12:03.120 --> 00:12:07.080 important ones, the first years, when the fear was still 205 00:12:07.120 --> 00:12:11.360 sharp and the observations hadn't been dulled by familiarity. Those 206 00:12:11.480 --> 00:12:14.639 entries contained details he'd never shared with Vernon or Opal 207 00:12:14.759 --> 00:12:18.480 or Riba or anyone. Details about a specific location on 208 00:12:18.519 --> 00:12:22.679 the property, a ravine, and what he'd found there. He 209 00:12:22.759 --> 00:12:25.399 told me about the map. It showed the route from 210 00:12:25.399 --> 00:12:28.840 the cabin to the ravine, marked with landmarks I'd recognize 211 00:12:28.840 --> 00:12:32.200 if I walked the property regularly. The ravine was about 212 00:12:32.200 --> 00:12:35.480 a quarter mile northeast of the cabin, in the national forest, 213 00:12:35.799 --> 00:12:39.159 off any established trail, in a section of terrain so 214 00:12:39.320 --> 00:12:42.919 thick with rhododendron and so steep with exposed rock that 215 00:12:42.960 --> 00:12:46.159 you'd never stumble on it by accident. He'd found it 216 00:12:46.200 --> 00:12:48.879 in the fall of seventy two, following a track line 217 00:12:48.879 --> 00:12:51.120 that led from the creek up through the forest and 218 00:12:51.200 --> 00:12:53.559 dead ended at the mouth of a slot canyon. He 219 00:12:53.600 --> 00:12:56.360 had it known existed, And then he said the thing 220 00:12:56.399 --> 00:12:59.440 that stopped my breathing. He said the ravine was where 221 00:12:59.440 --> 00:13:04.200 they lived, not all the time, not exclusively, but seasonally. 222 00:13:05.000 --> 00:13:07.759 In the coldest months, when the high ridges were scoured 223 00:13:07.759 --> 00:13:11.080 by wind and the temperatures dropped below anything a warm 224 00:13:11.080 --> 00:13:14.320 blooded creature would want to endure on an exposed slope, 225 00:13:14.600 --> 00:13:18.559 they came down to the ravine. It was protected, sheltered 226 00:13:18.600 --> 00:13:22.639 on three sides by rock walls south facing which men 227 00:13:22.720 --> 00:13:25.960 had caught winter sun deep enough that the temperature at 228 00:13:25.960 --> 00:13:28.639 the bottom stayed above freezing, even when the ridge above 229 00:13:28.799 --> 00:13:32.399 was locked in ice. Earl had been to the ravine twice, 230 00:13:33.080 --> 00:13:35.759 once in seventy two when he'd followed the tracks and 231 00:13:35.799 --> 00:13:39.159 found it by accident, and once in seventy three, when 232 00:13:39.200 --> 00:13:41.639 he'd gone back on purpose to confirm what he'd seen 233 00:13:41.679 --> 00:13:45.159 the first time. He never went a third time. What 234 00:13:45.240 --> 00:13:47.840 he'd seen on that second visit convinced him that going 235 00:13:47.879 --> 00:13:51.080 back would be a mistake. He described what he'd found 236 00:13:51.120 --> 00:13:53.720 in the journal. He told me to read it, and 237 00:13:53.759 --> 00:13:55.840 he told me to make my own decision about whether 238 00:13:55.919 --> 00:13:58.840 to go. The last line of the letter said this, 239 00:13:59.600 --> 00:14:02.399 if you go, oh, go and winter, they'll be there 240 00:14:02.840 --> 00:14:06.080 and they'll know you're coming long before you arrive. Don't 241 00:14:06.120 --> 00:14:09.080 be afraid of that. They've known about everyone who's walked 242 00:14:09.080 --> 00:14:12.320 this corridor for the past fifty years. The ones they 243 00:14:12.320 --> 00:14:16.000 don't want there they've turned away. The ones they've let in, 244 00:14:16.480 --> 00:14:19.200 they've let in for a reason. If they let you 245 00:14:19.279 --> 00:14:23.559 reach the ravine, it's because they've decided you belong. I 246 00:14:23.600 --> 00:14:26.559 set the letter down and opened the journal. The handwriting 247 00:14:26.559 --> 00:14:30.279 in the journal was different from the letter, Younger Sharper, 248 00:14:30.960 --> 00:14:33.080 the handwriting of a man in his late thirties who 249 00:14:33.080 --> 00:14:35.960 pressed the pen hard enough to leave grooves in the paper. 250 00:14:36.799 --> 00:14:39.960 The journal covered nineteen seventy two through nineteen eighty one, 251 00:14:40.360 --> 00:14:44.320 with entries becoming less frequent after seventy five. The early 252 00:14:44.480 --> 00:14:47.639 entries were detailed, sometimes running two or three pages for 253 00:14:47.679 --> 00:14:51.360 a single night's observation. The later ones were a sentence 254 00:14:51.440 --> 00:14:55.080 or two confirmation of patterns that had already been established. 255 00:14:55.759 --> 00:14:58.080 I'm not going to read you every entry, but I'll 256 00:14:58.080 --> 00:15:01.000 share the ones that matter. Stay tuned for more Backwoods 257 00:15:01.000 --> 00:15:05.960 big Foot stories. We'll be back after these messages. The 258 00:15:06.000 --> 00:15:10.759 first entry was dated September fourteenth, nineteen seventy two. Earle 259 00:15:10.840 --> 00:15:13.159 wrote that he'd been hearing the knocking since the previous 260 00:15:13.159 --> 00:15:16.519 summer and had been trying to identify the source without success. 261 00:15:17.279 --> 00:15:20.200 He'd walked the ridge on multiple occasions during daylight and 262 00:15:20.240 --> 00:15:25.919 found nothing, no logging activity, no hunting camps, no other explanation. 263 00:15:26.919 --> 00:15:30.080 On September fourteenth, he decided to follow the sound at dusk, 264 00:15:30.440 --> 00:15:33.960 walking northeast from the cabin toward the ridge. He made 265 00:15:34.000 --> 00:15:36.759 it about two hundred yards past the property line when 266 00:15:36.759 --> 00:15:41.080 the knocking shifted. Instead of coming from above from the ridge, 267 00:15:41.240 --> 00:15:44.720 it came from below, from a drainage he hadn't explored. 268 00:15:45.480 --> 00:15:48.799 He followed the sound downslope through heavy rhododendron into a 269 00:15:48.879 --> 00:15:51.360 narrow ravine that cut into the mountain side at a 270 00:15:51.360 --> 00:15:55.480 steep angle. Rock walls maybe thirty feet high on both sides, 271 00:15:56.159 --> 00:15:59.200 thick moss and leaf litter on the floor, a trickle 272 00:15:59.240 --> 00:16:02.200 of water running along the bottom, feeding into a drainage 273 00:16:02.200 --> 00:16:05.840 that eventually reached Bishop Creek. At the mouth of the ravine, 274 00:16:05.879 --> 00:16:11.919 he found tracks fresh multiple sets different sizes pressed into 275 00:16:11.960 --> 00:16:15.960 the damp ground along the watercourse, overlapping, headed both in 276 00:16:16.200 --> 00:16:19.960 and out. He didn't describe the tracks in detail, just 277 00:16:20.039 --> 00:16:21.919 said they were the same as what he'd been finding 278 00:16:21.960 --> 00:16:27.000 near the cabin. Big, bare feet with five toes. He 279 00:16:27.080 --> 00:16:30.000 followed the tracks in for about one hundred yards. The 280 00:16:30.039 --> 00:16:34.240 walls closed in the rhododendron canopy thickened overhead until the 281 00:16:34.279 --> 00:16:37.840 twilight was nearly gone. He could hear water dripping from 282 00:16:37.879 --> 00:16:40.879 the rock walls and the faint gurgling of the stream, 283 00:16:41.159 --> 00:16:44.039 and there was a smell. He described it as heavy 284 00:16:44.080 --> 00:16:48.480 and organic, wet animal hide mixed with something sour. The 285 00:16:48.519 --> 00:16:52.120 deeper he went, the stronger it got. He stopped when 286 00:16:52.120 --> 00:16:54.879 he found the beds flattened areas in the moss and 287 00:16:54.960 --> 00:16:58.799 leaf litter, roughly oval about six feet long and three 288 00:16:58.840 --> 00:17:02.639 feet wide, Three of them spaced about ten feet apart 289 00:17:02.679 --> 00:17:05.440 along the ravine floor near the base of the south 290 00:17:05.480 --> 00:17:08.640 facing rock wall, where the afternoon sun would hit during 291 00:17:08.680 --> 00:17:12.160 the short winter days. The moss in each depression was 292 00:17:12.200 --> 00:17:15.799 compressed and discolored, worn down to bare dirt in the center, 293 00:17:16.039 --> 00:17:19.519 with a rim of undisturbed growth around the edges. And 294 00:17:19.599 --> 00:17:23.240 this is the key detail. These weren't temporary resting spots. 295 00:17:23.759 --> 00:17:29.000 They were worn, used repeatedly over a long period. Beside 296 00:17:29.000 --> 00:17:30.960 one of the beds, he found a pile of bones, 297 00:17:31.480 --> 00:17:37.920 small animal bones, deer, raccoon, possum, gnawed clean, cracked for marrow. 298 00:17:38.720 --> 00:17:41.920 And here's what got me. They were stacked neatly beside 299 00:17:41.920 --> 00:17:46.519 the depression, organized the way you'd stack dishes beside a sink, 300 00:17:47.079 --> 00:17:51.039 not scattered, sorted. Earl didn't go any deeper into the 301 00:17:51.079 --> 00:17:54.359 ravine that night. He turned around, walked back to the 302 00:17:54.400 --> 00:17:57.680 cabin and sat on the porch until full dark. He 303 00:17:57.759 --> 00:17:59.839 wrote that his hands were shaking too badly to hold 304 00:17:59.880 --> 00:18:03.319 a coffee cup. Riba asked him what was wrong, and 305 00:18:03.359 --> 00:18:05.400 he told her he'd seen a copperhead on the trail 306 00:18:05.680 --> 00:18:09.119 and it had spooked him, the first lie of many. 307 00:18:09.920 --> 00:18:13.400 The second visit was in January of seventy three. Earle 308 00:18:13.440 --> 00:18:16.519 went back on a cold, clear morning, fresh snow on 309 00:18:16.559 --> 00:18:20.160 the ground about four inches. He followed his own trail 310 00:18:20.200 --> 00:18:23.160 from the previous fall and entered the ravine. The beds 311 00:18:23.160 --> 00:18:27.200 were occupied, not by the creatures themselves. They weren't there, 312 00:18:27.920 --> 00:18:30.839 but the evidence of recent use was impossible to miss. 313 00:18:31.640 --> 00:18:33.960 The snow in the beds had been melted by body heat, 314 00:18:34.400 --> 00:18:37.640 leaving oval patches of bare, warm ground in the otherwise 315 00:18:37.680 --> 00:18:42.319 white landscape. The moss was damp and pressed flat. Hair 316 00:18:42.400 --> 00:18:44.720 was caught on the rock walls where something large had 317 00:18:44.720 --> 00:18:49.160 brushed against the stone, dark brown hair several inches long, 318 00:18:49.640 --> 00:18:52.720 course identical to what I'd seen on the figure at 319 00:18:52.720 --> 00:18:56.119 the meadows Edge in twenty fourteen. The bone pile had 320 00:18:56.160 --> 00:19:00.480 grown since the fall, more small animal remains, a few 321 00:19:00.559 --> 00:19:03.319 larger bones that Earle thought might be from a young deer, 322 00:19:04.079 --> 00:19:08.279 all gnawed and cracked, all stacked, and there was something 323 00:19:08.359 --> 00:19:11.799 new against the south wall of the ravine. About fifty 324 00:19:11.880 --> 00:19:15.400 yards past the beds, Earl found a shallow overhang where 325 00:19:15.400 --> 00:19:18.440 the rock face had eroded to create a natural shelf 326 00:19:19.200 --> 00:19:23.319 about three feet deep and six feet wide. Under that shelf, 327 00:19:23.359 --> 00:19:27.880 protected from rain and snow, someone had placed objects stones, 328 00:19:28.680 --> 00:19:32.240 river stones, smooth and polished, the kind that come from 329 00:19:32.279 --> 00:19:35.960 creek beds after years of water action. About two dozen 330 00:19:35.960 --> 00:19:38.640 of them arranged in a line along the back of 331 00:19:38.680 --> 00:19:44.359 the shelf, different sizes from marbles to fists, each one distinct, 332 00:19:44.960 --> 00:19:48.920 each one placed deliberately with space between them, the way 333 00:19:48.960 --> 00:19:52.519 you'd arrange items on a mantle. Beside the stones, there 334 00:19:52.519 --> 00:19:56.440 were sticks, short pieces of wood six to eight inches long, 335 00:19:56.640 --> 00:20:01.279 stripped of bark, the ends rounded smooth. Earl counted fourteen 336 00:20:01.319 --> 00:20:03.839 of them. They were bundled together with a strip of 337 00:20:03.880 --> 00:20:06.359 bark and leaned against the rock wall behind the stone 338 00:20:06.440 --> 00:20:09.640 line and at the far end of the shelf, separated 339 00:20:09.680 --> 00:20:11.920 from the stones and sticks by about two feet of 340 00:20:11.960 --> 00:20:15.039 empty space, there was a single item that Earle spent 341 00:20:15.160 --> 00:20:18.680 most of a journal page describing. A piece of quartz, 342 00:20:19.200 --> 00:20:24.119 not river quartz, a crystal point clear, about four inches long, 343 00:20:24.519 --> 00:20:27.799 naturally faceted with a slight milky cast at the base, 344 00:20:28.680 --> 00:20:32.119 the kind of mineral specimen that geology students get excited about. 345 00:20:32.880 --> 00:20:36.599 It was standing upright, balanced on its base, positioned at 346 00:20:36.640 --> 00:20:39.960 the exact center of the shelf's far end. I want 347 00:20:40.039 --> 00:20:42.880 you to think about what Earl was looking at. A collection, 348 00:20:43.519 --> 00:20:47.079 an arrangement of found objects, curated and displayed in a 349 00:20:47.079 --> 00:20:51.160 protected space, maintained over time. The kind of thing you'd 350 00:20:51.200 --> 00:20:54.559 find in a child's room, on a naturalist's window sill, 351 00:20:55.279 --> 00:20:57.559 in the cabin of someone who walks creek beds for 352 00:20:57.599 --> 00:21:00.000 pleasure and brings home. The things that catch their eyes. 353 00:21:01.119 --> 00:21:04.440 Earle wrote that his first reaction was disbelief, because what 354 00:21:04.480 --> 00:21:06.960 he was looking at couldn't be what it appeared to be. 355 00:21:07.720 --> 00:21:10.319 His second reaction was something he didn't have a word for, 356 00:21:11.000 --> 00:21:14.839 not fear, not wonder, something between the two that had 357 00:21:14.880 --> 00:21:18.160 no name in his vocabulary. He described it as the 358 00:21:18.160 --> 00:21:20.359 feeling of looking at evidence that the thing you've been 359 00:21:20.400 --> 00:21:23.880 sharing a mountain with isn't just smart, it's something else. 360 00:21:24.599 --> 00:21:27.759 Something that picks up stones because they're beautiful and keeps 361 00:21:27.799 --> 00:21:31.640 them because they mean something, something that arranges objects for 362 00:21:31.720 --> 00:21:35.880 the satisfaction of seeing them arranged, something that has an 363 00:21:35.920 --> 00:21:40.519 interior life. Earle left the ravine that morning without touching anything. 364 00:21:41.240 --> 00:21:43.440 He went back to the cabin and wrote everything down, 365 00:21:44.200 --> 00:21:46.200 and then he made a decision that shaped the next 366 00:21:46.240 --> 00:21:49.519 forty years of his life on the mountain. He decided 367 00:21:49.519 --> 00:21:54.680 not to tell anyone, not Vernon, not Riba, nobody. He 368 00:21:54.720 --> 00:21:57.559 sealed the journal and the map in plastic, fitted them 369 00:21:57.559 --> 00:22:00.279 into the cavity he'd built into the cellar wall, and 370 00:22:00.319 --> 00:22:02.640 covered it with a single fitted stone that looked like 371 00:22:02.720 --> 00:22:06.000 every other stone in the wall. He buried the ravine, 372 00:22:06.599 --> 00:22:08.519 and he lived with the knowledge of it alone for 373 00:22:08.559 --> 00:22:11.559 the rest of his life. The journal entries after the 374 00:22:11.640 --> 00:22:14.920 ravine visits were sparse. A few lines here and there 375 00:22:14.960 --> 00:22:19.240 over the following eight years. Notes about knocking patterns, notes 376 00:22:19.240 --> 00:22:23.119 about garden activity, a brief mention of the mimicry incident 377 00:22:23.160 --> 00:22:26.559 in seventy one, which matched what Vernon had documented and 378 00:22:26.680 --> 00:22:30.480 Opal had shared with me. Nothing more about the ravine, 379 00:22:30.519 --> 00:22:33.039 nothing about the shelf, or the stones or the crystal. 380 00:22:33.680 --> 00:22:37.799 He'd made his decision. The ravine was off limits. Finding 381 00:22:37.839 --> 00:22:40.599 their beds and their collection and their resting place was 382 00:22:40.640 --> 00:22:44.279 the deepest possible intrusion into their private world, and the 383 00:22:44.319 --> 00:22:47.799 only ethical response was to walk away and never come back. 384 00:22:48.640 --> 00:22:51.400 He'd held to that for forty three years. But he'd 385 00:22:51.440 --> 00:22:54.599 left the journal in the wall, addressed the envelope to me, 386 00:22:55.200 --> 00:22:58.319 written the letter that said, if you go, go and winter. 387 00:22:59.200 --> 00:23:01.680 Earl wanted some and to know. He just couldn't be 388 00:23:01.720 --> 00:23:04.400 the one to tell them. I sat with the journal 389 00:23:04.440 --> 00:23:06.680 and the letter and the map for three days before 390 00:23:06.680 --> 00:23:09.680 I made a decision. Three days of walking around the 391 00:23:09.720 --> 00:23:12.599 cabin with Earl's words in my head and his handwriting 392 00:23:12.640 --> 00:23:15.599 on the kitchen table. I couldn't sleep. The first night 393 00:23:16.240 --> 00:23:18.519 I lay in bed with Bowie snoring beside me and 394 00:23:18.599 --> 00:23:20.799 Ruby on the floor, and the knocking coming from the 395 00:23:20.880 --> 00:23:23.480 ridge the way it always did, and I listened to 396 00:23:23.519 --> 00:23:26.960 it differently than I'd ever listened before, because now I 397 00:23:27.000 --> 00:23:29.400 knew where the knockers went when they were done knocking. 398 00:23:30.160 --> 00:23:33.119 I knew where they slept. I knew they collected stones 399 00:23:33.160 --> 00:23:35.559 and arranged them on a shelf and kept a quartz 400 00:23:35.599 --> 00:23:40.359 crystal standing upright like a centerpiece. That knowledge changed the sound. 401 00:23:40.920 --> 00:23:46.039